Anthropology is separated from mass reading, and that is something that bothered Margaret Mead. She always said that she wrote everything for her grandmother, in a way that her grandmother could understand what she was saying.

I love reading fiction about people who are connecting intellectually. I find that exhilarating.

I've always thought of writing as sort of active communication.

Anthropological fieldwork is so much like writing a novel. You don't know what the hell is going on.

I definitely feel that my brain works differently, and words come out differently, if I have a pencil in my hand, rather than if I have a keyboard.

Anthropological fieldwork is so much like writing a novel. Granted, you don't have the physical disruption and disorientation, but writing a novel is like entering a new culture. You don't know what the hell is going on. And every day you feel like you have nothing, you're going nowhere. Or you feel that first it's going somewhere, but then you get into that horrible middle part.

I'm always interested in a claustrophobic situation where people might be powerless to do things.