I don't think things are moving toward an omega point; I think they're moving toward more diversity

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

Younger anthropologists have the notion that anthropology is too diverse. The number of things done under the name of anthropology is just infinite; you can do anything and call it anthropology

It may be in the cultural particularities of people — in their oddities — that some of the most instructive revelations of what it is to be generically human are to be found.

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

Learning to exist in a world quite different from that which formed you is the condition, these days, of pursuing research you can on balance believe in and write sentences you can more or less live with.

Anthropology in general has always been fairly hospitable to female scholars, and even to feminist scholars