Man is not like other animals in the ways that are really significant: Animals have instincts, we have taxes.

All the world is not, of course, a stage, but the crucial ways in which it isn’t are not easy to specify

Stigma is a process by which the reaction of others spoils normal identity.

Our sense of being a person can come from being drawn into a wide social unit; our sense of selfhood can arise through the little ways in which we resist the pull. Our status is backed by the solid buildings of the world, while our sense of personal identity often resides in the cracks

And to the degree that the individual maintains a show before others that he himself does not believe, he can come to experience a special kind of alienation from self and a special kind of wariness of others.

The world, in truth, is a wedding.

Perhaps the individual is so viable a god because he can actually understand the ceremonial significance of the way he is treated, and quite on his own can respond dramatically to what is proffered him. In contacts between such deities there is no need for middlemen; each of these gods is able to serve as his own priest.