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I honestly think anthropology is one of the most useful fields a fantasy writer can study, more so even than history.

Maybe if I'd studied writing instead of anthropology, I'd be more sensible. You know - pick a genre, follow the rules, stay in the box - but let's face it. Sensible people don't major in anthropology.

The point of literary criticism in anthropology is not to replace research, but to find out how it is that we are persuasive.

Literature at its fullest takes human nature as its theme. That's the kind of writing that interests me.

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

I like to do the research of history and the creativity of writing fiction. I am creating this thing which I think is twice as difficult as writing either history or fiction.

I am more and more convinced that literature is made up of works, genres, schools, discussions, problems, collective work in order to solve certain problems.

I think the job of writing and literature is to encourage each one of us to believe that we're living in a story.

There is more to folklore research than fieldwork. This is why in all of my other upper-division courses I require a term paper involving original research.

I specialise in taking teams of designers, psychologists, usability experts, sociologists and ethnographers into the field. It's called 'corporate anthropology,' but personally I'm more comfortable with 'design research,' because I'm not an anthropologist by training.