The North African mule talks always of his mother's brother, the horse, but never of his father, the donkey, in favor of others supposedly more reputable.

Culture is public, because meaning is

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

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

Cultural analysis is intrinsically incomplete. And, worse than that, the more deeply it goes the less complete it is.

Anthropology never has had a distinct subject matter, and because it doesn't have a real method, there's a great deal of anxiety over what it is

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