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

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

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

I don't have the notion that everybody has to write in some single academic style

I never leave a sentence or a paragraph until I'm satisfied with it

One of the most significant facts about humanity may finally be that we all begin with the natural equipment to a live a thousand kinds of life but end in the end having lived only one

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