I had lived in France before graduate school, but because of Spain, I had a lot of the characters go and spend a good bit of time in Spain.

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.

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

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.

To remain vital, culture must be renewed in the minds of the members of every generation. Outsource memory, and culture withers.

You can be betrayed in your sleep. The whole world can tilt while you're dreaming of butterflies.

My career spanned the era when relievers started to become more important

If you look at your past and are depressed it means that you are listening to the devil.

He looks the whole world in the face for he owes not any man.

The tangible source of exploitation disappears behind the façade of objective rationality.

Students should not feel as if they had missed the boat if they failed examinations and should be presented with more opportunities to further their studies.

Or like in the early 70's when we had the reaction against acid rock and all the fuzz tone, and feedback, and the noise. And you had James Taylor and everyone went acoustic and that.

I used to believe that if I could do certain things - write a book or be a successful musician - that I'd be transformed into a happy person, but it doesn't work that way.

Bill Russell helped make my dream a better dream because when you play with the best, you know you have to play your best.