Claude Levi-Strauss Quotes

We think in myths; we live in myths

Mother goddesses are just as silly a notion as father gods. If a revival of the myths of these cults gives woman emotional satisfaction, it does so at the price of obscuring the real conditions of life. This is why they were invented in the first place.

In complex trains of thought signs are indispensable.

My suggestion is that at each state the proper order of operation of the mind requires an overall grasp of what is generally known, not only in formal logical, mathematical terms, but also intuitively, in images, feelings, poetic usage of language, etc.

Myth is an attempt to narrate a whole human experience, of which the purpose is too deep, going too deep in the blood and soul, for mental explanation or description.

I've always been interested in this idea of looking at these monster stories and trying to really understand the mechanics underneath. That's very much true of this movie I made, 'All Good Things,' as well as 'Catfish,' which I produced.

We all, to some degree, absorb the mythologies around us, our vision refracted by the prisms of our particular time and place.

Where is Hollywood located? Chiefly between the ears. In that part of the American brain lately vacated by God.

It was Jung who first said to explain the symbol as if talking to a man from mars who knew nothing about our life on earth.

I think acting and psychology are both looking at what makes human beings tick. I've always found that fascinating.

In order for sensation to accede to the objectivity of things, it must itself be changed into a thing. The agent of change is language: the sensations are turned into verbal objects.

In terms of the mechanics of story, myth is an intriguing one because we didn't make myth up; myth is an imprinture of the human condition.

I'm just trying to make a smudge on the collective unconscious.

The mind is like a richly woven tapestry in which the colors are distilled from the experiences of the senses, and the design drawn from the convolutions of the intellect.

I took physics, and lo and behold, there's a lot of physics in 'Lost.' I think for most people, liberal arts educations are more abstract, but for me, it's been a chance to apply the things I've learned more directly. I also took some Folklore and Mythology classes, and I think that a lot of that influenced me.

The images attempt to capture scientific thought. They represent the physical manifestation of the thought process. Everything in the laboratory is a product of a stream of conscious or unconscious thought.

The hero, the mythical subject, is constructed as human being and as male; he is the active principle of culture, the establisher of distinction, the creator of differences.

If our titles recall the known myths of antiquity, we have used them again because they are the eternal symbols upon which we must fall back to express basic psychological ideas.

Imagination is always the fabric of social life and the dynamic of history. The influence of real needs and compulsions, of real interests and materials, is indirect because the crowd is never conscious of it.

No work of history can ever escape its own time...we are all influenced by what we read and what we experience.

Myth is a powerful medium because it talks to the emotions and not the head. It moves us into an area of mystery.

There's nothing more political than fantasy.

Memory depends mainly upon myth. Some even occurs in our minds, in actuality or in fantasy; we form it in memory, molding it like clay day after day - and soon we have made out of that event a myth. We then keep the myth in memory as a guide to future similar situations.

Stories are told over time, and so they naturally accrue meanings.

As a folklorist, I have come to believe that no piece of folklore continues to be transmitted unless it means something - even if neither the speaker nor the audience can articulate what that meaning might be.