Top 100 Michael Crichton Quotes
#1. The meaning of these discoveries has not yet been sorted out, but it is certainly now impossible to regard the prehistoric Europeans as savages idly
Michael Crichton
#2. In the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don't know any better.
Michael Crichton
#4. Most areas of intellectual life have discovered the virtues of speculation, and have embraced them wildly. In academia, speculation is usually dignified as theory.
Michael Crichton
#6. They believed that prediction was just a function of keeping track of things. If you knew enough, you could predict anything. That's been cherished scientific belief since Newton.'
And?'
Chaos theory throws it right out the window.
Michael Crichton
#7. Chaos theory describes nonlinear systems. It's now become a very broad theory that's been used to study everything from the stock market to heart rhythms. A very fashionable theory. Very trendy to apply it to any complex system where there might be unpredictability.
Michael Crichton
#9. Dr. Grant, my dear Dr. Sattler ... Welcome to Jurassic Park.
Michael Crichton
#10. The rock, for its part, is not even aware of our existence because we are alive for only a brief instant of its lifespan. To it, we are like flashes in the dark.
Michael Crichton
#11. The risk is too great. A man cannot place too much faith in any one thing, neither a woman, nor a horse, nor a weapon, nor any single thing.
Michael Crichton
#12. Hammond turned to Gennaro. "You know, of course, what Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler do. They are paleontologists. They dig up dinosaurs." And then he began to laugh, as if he found the idea very funny.
Michael Crichton
#13. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.
Michael Crichton
#14. The planet has survived everything, in its time. It will certainly survive us.
Michael Crichton
#15. Without question, the notion of the doctor as a legitimate fee-for-service entrepreneur, making his fortune from misfortunes of is patients, is old-fashioned, distasteful, and doomed.
Michael Crichton
#16. Science has always said that it may not know everything now but it will know, eventually. But now we see that isn't true. It is an idle boast. As foolish, and as misguided, as the child who jumps off a building because he believes he can fly.
Michael Crichton
#17. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results.
Michael Crichton
#19. In his view, a theory was nothing more than a substitute for experience put forth by someone who didn't know what he was talking about.
Michael Crichton
#20. You must first learn patience, if you wish to learn anything at all.
Michael Crichton
#21. They always say they didn't. I never heard of one who said, 'You know, I deserve this.' Never happens.
Michael Crichton
#22. People aren't studying the natural world any more, they're mining it. It's a looter mentality. Anything new or unknown is automatically of interest, because it might have value. It might be worth a fortune.
Michael Crichton
#23. Caring is irrelevant. Desire to do good is irrelevant. All that counts is knowledge and results
Michael Crichton
#24. And because you can stand on the shoulders of giants, you can accomplish something quickly.
Michael Crichton
#25. Real life isn't a series of interconnected events occurring one after another like beads strung on a necklace. Life is actually a series of encounters in which one event may change those that follow in a wholly unpredictable, even devastating way.
Michael Crichton
#26. There is a problem with that island. It is an accident waiting to happen.
Michael Crichton
#27. Discovery, they believe, is inevitable. So they just try to do it first. That's the game in science.
Michael Crichton
#28. theoretician, his reputation secured in probability-density functions
Michael Crichton
#29. All your life, other people will try to take your accomplishments away from you. Don't you take it away from yourself.
Michael Crichton
#30. There isn't any delusion. It is absolutely clear that this body energy is a genuine phenomenon of some kind.
Michael Crichton
#31. it was "the hardest damn thing I ever did in my life. I don't care how many feathers a man wears in his hair, he's still a man. One of them, Red Legs, looked at me and said 'do you think this is fair? Would you sign such a paper?' and I could not meet his eyes. It made me sick.
Michael Crichton
#32. Human beings never think for themselves; they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view.
Michael Crichton
#34. It takes enormous effort to avoid all theories and just see.
Michael Crichton
#35. Nobody dares to solve the problems-because the solution might contradict your philosophy, and for most people clinging to beliefs is more important than succeeding in the world.
Michael Crichton
#36. Life is actually a series of encounters in which one event may change those that follow in a wholly unpredictable, even devastating way. Malcolm
Michael Crichton
#37. You've never heard of Chaos theory? Non-linear equations? Strange attractors? Ms. Sattler, I refuse to believe you're not familiar with the concept of attraction.
Michael Crichton
#38. The kids were probably with Grant. And if Grant was out in the park, well ... what better person to get them safely through Jurassic Park than a dinosaur expert?
Michael Crichton
#40. Once again, claims of moral superiority are used to justify extreme actions. Once again, the fact that some people are hurt is shrugged off because an abstract cause is said to be greater than any human consequences. Once
Michael Crichton
#41. The number of hours women devote to housework has not changed since 1930, despite all the advances. All the vacuum cleaners, washer-dryers, trash compactors, garbage disposals, wash-and-wear fabrics ... Why does it still take as long to clean the house as it did in 1930?
Michael Crichton
#42. You are the reason why he exists on this earth. You don't have the right to abandon him just because he's inconvenient or has trouble in school.
Michael Crichton
#44. Whether you see the world as emergent or, deteriorating. We have long known that some people favor innovation and look positively toward the future while others are frightened of change and want to halt innovation.
Michael Crichton
#45. This disaster was caused by environmentalists charged with protecting the wilderness, who made one dreadful mistake after another - and, along the way, proved how little they understood the environment they intended to protect.
Michael Crichton
#47. All the deep-diving studies show that women are superior for submerged operations. They're physically smaller and consume less nutrients and air, they have better social skills and tolerate close quarters better, and they are physiologically tougher and have better endurance.
Michael Crichton
#48. Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're being asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?
Michael Crichton
#49. Readers probably haven't heard much about it yet, but they will. Quantum technology turns ordinary reality upside down.
Michael Crichton
#50. You got cell phones, you got computers, you got antibiotics, medicines, hospitals. And you say the old ways are better?
Michael Crichton
#51. In reality, time doesn't pass; we pass. Time itself is invariant. It just is. Therefore, past and future aren't separate locations, the way New York and Paris are separate locations. And since the past isn't a location, you can't travel to it.
Michael Crichton
#52. The world was not how you wanted it to be. The world was how it was.
Michael Crichton
#53. Living systems are never in equilibrium. They are inherently unstable. They may seem stable, but they're not. Everything is moving and changing. In a sense, everything is on the edge of collapse.
Michael Crichton
#54. I was raised with the idea that if you're not smart enough to do science you can do politics.
Michael Crichton
#55. They want the Indians eliminated, and the lands opened up to white settlers, but they don't want anybody to get hurt in the process. That just ain't possible.
Michael Crichton
#56. Do not think ahead, and be cheerful by knowing that no man lives forever.
Michael Crichton
#57. We have been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we are gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.
Michael Crichton
#58. He's an engineer. Wu's the same. They're both technicians. They don't have intelligence. They have what I call 'thintelligence.' They see the immediate situation. They think narrowly and they call it 'being focused.' They don't see the surround.
Michael Crichton
#59. I believe my life has a value, and i don't want to waste it thinking about clothing.
I don't want to think about what i will wear in the morning. Truly, can you imagine anything more boring than fashion?
Michael Crichton
#60. Conventional wisdom is invariably out of date. Because in the time it has taken to become conventional - to become what everyone believes - the world has moved on. Conventional wisdom is a remnant of the past.
Michael Crichton
#61. All heart surgeons are bastards, and Conway is no exception.
Michael Crichton
#62. The world is alive, Ted. Things are constantly in flux. Species are winning, losing, rising, falling, taking over, being pushed back. Merely setting aside wilderness doesn't freeze it in its present state, any
Michael Crichton
#63. And in that moment, their situation was clear to him. Their guides were both dead. One machine was gone. Their return marker was shattered. Which meant they were stuck in this place. Trapped here, without guides or assistance. And with no prospect of ever getting back. Not ever.
Michael Crichton
#64. The doctor is not a miracle worker who can magically save us but, rather, an expert adviser who can assist us in our own recovery.
Michael Crichton
#66. What don't you care about?"
"Anything," Malcolm said. "Because ... everything looks different ... on the other side."
And he smiled.
Michael Crichton
#67. Universities are no longer the intellectual centers of the country. The very idea is preposterous. Universities are the backwater. Don't look so surprised. I'm not saying anything you don't know. Since World War II, all the really important discoveries have come out of private laboratories.
Michael Crichton
#68. Based on UN statistics, is that before the DDT ban, malaria had become almost a minor illness. Fifty thousand deaths a year worldwide. A few years later, it was once again a global scourge. Fifty million people have died since the ban,
Michael Crichton
#69. It's hard to observe without imposing a theory to explain what we're seeing, but the trouble with theories, as Einstein said, is that they explain not only what is observed but what CAN BE observed. We start to build expectations based on our theories. And often those expectations get in the way.
Michael Crichton
#70. Save the Earth" and beneath that, "There's Nowhere Else to Go.
Michael Crichton
#72. Skeptical scientists often point out, as Carl Sagan has, that the wonders of real science far surpass the supposed wonders of fringe science. I think it is possible to invert that idea, and to say that the wonders of real consciousness far surpass what conventional science admits can exist.
Michael Crichton
#73. The purpose of life is to stay alive. Watch any animal in nature
all it tries to do is stay alive. It doesn't care about beliefs or philosophy. Whenever any animal's behavior puts it out of touch with the realities of its existence, it becomes exinct.
Michael Crichton
#74. Sneaking up on it sometimes helps: I've found I can be very productive for an hour before dinner, because there obviously isn't enough time to really do anything, so I can tell myself I'm just screwing around.
Michael Crichton
#75. Personally, I don't deal much in theory. I have to deal with the facts. And on the basis of facts, I don't see much difference in the behavior of men and women.
Michael Crichton
#77. Crocodiles are basically Triassic animals living in the present. Sharks are Triassic. So we know it has happened before.
Michael Crichton
#78. We haven't had any accidents for months now ... Everything on that island is perfectly fine.
Michael Crichton
#79. I can tell you that second hand smoke is not a health hazard to anyone and never was, and the EPA has always known it.
Michael Crichton
#80. Not at all. I find it liberating. I believe my life has value, and I don't want to waste it thinking about clothing,
Michael Crichton
#81. In the lobby of the visitor center, the glass doors had been shattered, and a cold gray mist blew through the cavernous main hall. A sign that read WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH dangled from one hinge, creaking in the wind.
Michael Crichton
#82. We all live every day in virtual environments, defined by our ideas.
Michael Crichton
#83. Sitting in the deserted law offices, Sanders had the feeling that he was all alone in the world, with nobody but Fernandez and the encoraching darkness. Things were happening quickly; this person he had never met before today was fast becoming a kind of lifeline for him.
Michael Crichton
#84. And Kelly was beginning to see that Sarah didn't let anything stop her, she just went and did it. This whole attitude of not letting other people stop you, of believing that you could do what you wanted, was something she found herself imitating.
Michael Crichton
#88. My point is, there is always a cause for fear. The cause may change over time, but the fear is always with us. Before
Michael Crichton
#89. Like everything else I'd seen at Xymos, it was jerry-built, half-baked, concocted in a hurry to solve present problems and never a thought to the future.
Michael Crichton
#90. Thus do strange things cease to be strange upon repetition.
Michael Crichton
#91. Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice.
Michael Crichton
#92. Eugenics research was funded by the Carnegie Foundation, and later by the Rockefeller Foundation. The
Michael Crichton
#93. As the practical value of altering consciousness becomes recognized, procedures to effect these alterations will become increasingly ordinary and unremarkable. The whole concept of changing states of consciousness will cease to have a threatening or exotic aspect.
Michael Crichton
#94. So what you have," Kenner said, "is a history of ignorant, incompetent, and disastrously intrusive intervention, followed by attempts to repair the intervention, followed by attempts to repair the damage caused by the repairs, as
Michael Crichton
#97. In a mass-media world, there's less of everything except the top ten books, records, movies, ideas. People worry about losing species diversity in the rain forest. But what about intellectual diversity - our most necessary resource? That's disappearing faster than trees.
Michael Crichton
#98. Scientific research was much like prospecting: you went out and you hunted, armed with your maps and instruments, but in the ened your preparations did not matter, or even your intuition. You needed your luck, and whatever benefits accrued to the diligent, through sheer, grinding hard work.
Michael Crichton
#100. You know, at times like this one feels, well, perhaps extinct animals should be left extinct.
Michael Crichton
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