Has feminism made us all more conscious? I think it has. Feminist critiques of anthropological masculine bias have been quite important, and they have increased my sensitivity to that kind of issue

I was trained in the '50s as a New Critic. I remember what literature was like before the New Critics, when people stood up and talked about Shelley's soul and such things

What we call our data are really our own constructions of other people’s constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to.

I think of myself as a writer who happens to be doing his writing as an anthropologist

I don't write drafts. I write from the beginning to the end, and when it's finished, it's done

A religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing those conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.

A scholar can hardly be better employed than in destroying a fear.