“Responding to myth often means wearingblinkers. Myth is a complex game of production and reception that involves selecting some parts of a narrative and suppressing others. As we shall see later on, this process of communication is not always easily controlled.”

“We are all tellers of tales, and we seek to provide our scattered and often confusing experiences with a sense of coherence by arranging the episodes of our lives. Starting in late adolescence, we manufacture our dramatic personal myths by selectively mining some experiences and neglecting or forgetting others.”

“A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.”

“Scholars have produced as manydefinitions of myth as there are myths themselves. This bookwill discuss various definitions of myth as it goes along, but it is interested in myth as a process as much as a thing.”

“A myth is 'a narrative involving supernatural or fancied persons embodying popular ideas or social phenomena.' Women love telling stories . . . the girl-group is a gigantic narrative full of morality tales locked up like charms in a crystallized sound.”

“The great myth of our times is that technology is communication.”