Anthropologists are great at novelistic observations. I would be thrilled if this novel would encourage anthropologists to write what they see in fictional form.

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

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

Was it possible in any relationship to not disappoint, to do anything more than only briefly rekindle the initial fatal illusion?

When I finished graduate school, the first George Bush was president, and I really wanted to get out of the country. We'd just gone through the first Gulf War.

I've also done things that put me in odd situations.

There are certain tribes in the middle Sepik that eat raw bat. A certain kind of raw bat is a delicacy.

Perhaps all science is merely self-investigation.

I'm very interested in the way people interact emotionally.

There are very few things I would love to do other than a life of writing, and I think being a singer-songwriter and being an anthropologist are the two other things I can imagine doing.

I love this idea of trying to create that intellectual eroticism. That was what I was working toward all along.

My pillows are dreaming, not me.With my eyes closed I only try to feel how they dream.

Chivalry is the most delicate form of contempt.

My father was a teacher and my mother also worked in the school, so the family has a background in education.

Success is not a function of the size of your title but the richness of your contribution.

Personally, I'm tired of hearing the whole have-you-no-decency routine from people who have made quite clear that they possess none themselves.

Men's minds must be free, and that means the minds of all, not the minds of a select few.

I see things differently when I'm focused on opening doors for other people, and more often than not, my doors are opened as well.

My psychoanalysis has equipped you with the equivalent of a train ticket to recovery. It is now your decision whether or not you choose to make full use of it.

I am terrified by this dark thing That sleeps in me; All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.