Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

People keep asking how anthropology is different from sociology, and everybody gets nervous.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

I think the perception of there being a deep gulf between science and the humanities is false.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

The North African mule talks always of his mother's brother, the horse, but never of his father, the donkey, in favor of others supposedly more reputable.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

Has feminism made us all more conscious? I think it has. Feminist critiques of anthropological masculine bias have been quite important, and they have increased my sensitivity to that kind of issue.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

If I remember correctly, a writer is someone who wants to convey information. Language or writing is a code.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

Anthropology never has had a distinct subject matter, and because it doesn't have a real method, there's a great deal of anxiety over what it is.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

Gender consciousness has become involved in almost every intellectual field: history, literature, science, anthropology. There's been an extraordinary advance.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

My instincts are always against people who want to fasten some sort of hegemony onto things.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

Meaning is socially, historically, and rhetorically constructed.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

I agree with Chomsky in almost nothing. When it comes to innate structures and so on, I'm very skeptical.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

I've often been accused of making anthropology into literature, but anthropology is also field research. Writing is central to it.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

I had a hard time convincing students that they were going to North Africa to understand the North Africans, not to understand themselves.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

I think of myself as a writer who happens to be doing his writing as an anthropologist.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

Anthropology in general has always been fairly hospitable to female scholars, and even to feminist scholars.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

I do think the attempt to raise consciousness has succeeded. People are very aware of gender concerns now.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

I don't feel that an atmosphere of debate and total disagreement and argument is such a bad thing. It makes for a vital and alive field.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

I don't have the notion that everybody has to write in some single academic style.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

I don't think things are moving toward an omega point; I think they're moving toward more diversity.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

I don't write drafts. I write from the beginning to the end, and when it's finished, it's done.

Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz

I never leave a sentence or a paragraph until I'm satisfied with it.