Michael Crichton

“To apply general tools to specific problems is to fail.”

“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.”

“All human behavior has a reason. All behavior is solving a problem.”

“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.”

“Harassment is about power---the undue exercise of power by a superior over a subordinate.”

“Sometimes women scare the hell out of me.”

“He did not want an affair with his boss. He did not even want a one-night stand. Because what always happened was that people found out, gossip at the water cooler, meaningful looks in the hallway. And sooner or later the spouses found out. It always happened. Slammed doors, divorce lawyers, child custody.”

“They always say they didn't. I never heard of one who said, 'You know, I deserve this.' Never happens.”

“Safety is the last refuge of the scoundrel!”

“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.”

“No one escapes from life alive.”

“Exercise invigorates the body and sharpens the mind.”

“All heart surgeons are bastards, and Conway is no exception.”

“You know, at times like this one feels, well, perhaps extinct animals should be left extinct.”

“... we have created a man with not one brain but two. ... This new brain is intended to control the biological brain. ... The patient's biological brain is the peripheral terminal -- the only peripheral terminal -- for the new computer. ... And therefore the patient's biological brain, indeed his whole body, has become a terminal for the new computer. We have created a man who is one single, large, complex computer terminal. The patient is a read-out device for the new computer, and is helpless to control the readout as a TV screen is helpless to control the information presented on it.”

“The planet has survived everything, in its time. It will certainly survive us.”

“He prays because he knows he doesn't control it. He's at the mercy of it.”

“All major changes are like death. You can't see to the other side until you are there.”

“But now science is the belief system that is hundreds of years old. And, like the medieval system before it, science is starting not to fit the world any more. Science has attained so much power that its practical limits begin to be apparent. Largely through science, billions of us live in one small world, densely packed and intercommunicating. But science cannot help us decide what to do with that world, or how to live. Science can make a nuclear reactor, but it cannot tell us not to build it. Science can make pesticide, but cannot tell us not to use it. And our world starts to seem polluted in fundamental ways---air, and water, and land---because of ungovernable science.”

“You know what's wrong with scientific power? It's a form of inherited wealth. And you know what assholes congenitally rich people are.”

“Discovery is always rape of the natural world. Always.”

“Nobody is driven by abstractions like 'seeking truth.”

“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. They don't see the consequences.”

“And that's how things are. A day is like a whole life. You start out doing one thing, but end up doing something else, plan to run an errand, but never get there. . . . And at the end of your life, your whole existence has the same haphazard quality, too. Your whole life has the same shape as a single day.”

“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.”

“And entertainment has nothing to do with reality. Entertainment is antithetical to reality.”

“People were so naive about plants, Ellie thought. They just chose plants for appearance, as they would choose a picture for the wall. It never occurred to them that plants were actually living things, busily performing all the living functions of respiration, ingestion, excretion, reproduction---and defense.”

“In the information society, nobody thinks. We expected to banish paper, but we actually banished thought.”

“This novel is fiction, except for the parts that aren't.”

“God creates dinosaurs, God kills dinosaurs, God creates man, man kills God, man brings back dinosaurs.”

“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.”

“Anyone who says he knows God's intention is showing a lot of very human ego.”

“A man can see by starlight, if he takes the time.”

“Science is as corruptible a human activity as any other.”

“Only assholes put a nickname on their business card.”

“The truth was, the more he got portrayed as an unprincipled, ruthless prick, the more clients flocked to him. Because when it came to divorce, people wanted a ruthless prick. They lined up for one.”

“Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else.”

“Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.”

“God created dinosaurs. God destroyed dinosaurs. God created Man. Man destroyed God. Man created dinosaurs. Dinosaurs eat man...Woman inherits the earth.”

“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.”

“Malcolm: A karate master does not kill people with his bare hands. He does not lose his temper and kill his wife. The person who kills is the person who has no discipline, no restraint, and who has purchased his power in the form of a Saturday night special. And that is why you think that to build a place like this is simple.Hammond: It was simple.Malcolm: Then why did it go wrong?”

“Discovery, they believe, is inevitable. So they just try to do it first. That's the game in science.”

“Having wallowed in a delightful orgy of anti-French sentiment, having deplored and applauded the villains themselves, having relished the foibles of bankers, railwaymen, diplomats, and police, the public was now ready to see its faith restored in the basic soundness of banks, railroads, government, and police.”

“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.”

“It's hard to decide who's truly brilliant; it's easier to see who's driven, which in the long run may be more important.”

“His management philosophy, tempered in his rain-dancing days, was always to give the project to whoever had the most to gain from success--or the most to lose from failure.”

“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”

“It's better to die laughing than to live each moment in fear.”

“Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.”

“What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There's no evidence for it. 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. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion. Next question.”