“Given a choice between patterns of subsistence that are relatively unfavorable to the cultivator but which yield a greater return in manpower or grain to the state and those patterns that benefit t...”

“Encouragement of sedentarism is perhaps the oldest "state project," a project related to the second-oldest state project of taxation.”

“-Paint-My girlfriend is so besotted that she can't take her eyes off me. After we've turned out the light she puts on her night-vision goggles, and watched me as I sleep. Quite often I am woken by ...”

“The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.”

“A man had better study what a human being is, because he's marrying one - assuming that merely being one has not been sufficient stimulus to that study.”

“An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets, the more interested he is in her.”

“Invisibility--there are things we can't see now, that are there, that are embedded, that it really takes time in order to be able to see. There are many ghosts that are lurking around and lingering...”

“If I considered the Partition an archeological site, and the many experiences of those who witnessed it as the sites structural sedimentation, then the deeper I excavated, the more I found, and tha...”

“The brown paper bag is the only thing civilized man has produced that does not seem out of place in nature.”

“A heart pulsating in harmony with the circulation of sap and the flow of rivers? A body with the rhythms of the earth in its movements? No. Instead: a mind, shut off from the oxygen of alert senses...”

“Have you noticed how dogs sniff at one another when they meet? It seems to be their nature.- Yes; it's a funny habit.- No, it's not funny; you are wrong there. There's nothing funny in nature, howe...”