Erving Goffman

Citations

• “The self... is not an organic thing that has a specific location, whose fundamental fate is to be born, to mature, to die; it is a dramatic effect arising diffusely from a scene that is presented.”

• “Approved attributes and their relation to face make every man his own jailer; this is a fundamental social constraint even though each man may like his cell.”

• “There seems to be no agent more effective than another person in bringing a world for oneself alive, or, by a glance, a gesture, or a remark, shriveling up the reality in which one is lodged.”

• “So I ask that these papers be taken for what they merely are: exercises, trials, tryouts, a means of displaying possibilities, not establishing fact.”

• “In total institutions there is a basic split between a large managed group, conveniently called inmates, and a small supervisory staff.”