[Culture] denotes an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms, by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life.

People keep asking how anthropology is different from sociology, and everybody gets nervous.

I agree with Chomsky in almost nothing. When it comes to innate structures and so on, I'm very skeptical

I think the American university system still seems to be the best system in the world

I'm an inveterate fox and not a hedgehog, so I always think you should try everything

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