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

It's always amusing to look at how something early in the 20th century was written in anthropology and how it's written now. There's been an enormous shift in how it's done, but yet you can't put your finger on someone who actually did it

I've written a lot of books which are written from the moon - the view from nowhere.

I think what's known about neurology is still scattered and uncertain

If I remember correctly, a writer is someone who wants to convey information. Language or writing is a code

The point of literary criticism in anthropology is not to replace research, but to find out how it is that we are persuasive.

I've often been accused of making anthropology into literature, but anthropology is also field research. Writing is central to it.