Quotes from Michael Crichton

So what are you saying? We shouldn't care about the environment?" "No, of course not." "Then what?" Malcolm coughed, and stared into the distance. "Let's be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet—or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves.

Look boy' Wyatt said. 'I know you're from back east, but nobody's that stupid

The romantic view of the natural world as a blissful Eden is only held by people who have no actual experience of nature. People who live in nature are not romantic about it at all. They may hold spiritual beliefs about the world around them, they may have a sense of the unity of nature or the aliveness of all things, but they still kill the animals and uproot the plants in order to eat, to live. If they don't, they will die.

Science is the most exciting and sustained enterprise of discovery in the history of our species. It is the great adventure of our time. We live today in an era of discovery that far outshadows the discoveries of the New World five hundred years ago.

We haven't got the power to destroy the planet—or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves.

They had all studied animal behavior, and they knew, for example, that when a new male took over a lion pride, the first thing he did was kill all the cubs.

A theory is only valuable if it has the ability to predict future outcomes. But history is the record of human action—and no theory can predict human action.

You've had plenty of engineering delays,' Hammond said. 'Don't blame it on the animals.

Presidents and generals and all the important people in position to make the most important decisions are, by and large, the least equipped for making them.

Let's keep it in perspective,' Hammond said. 'You get the engineering correct and the animals will fall into place. After all, they're trainable.

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?

This impulsive behavior: you realize it's a storm in the brain, neurons on the edge of chaos. Obsession is just a variety of addiction. But what scientist ever had self-control? They instruct them in school: it's bad form to be balanced.

You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us. To the earth... a million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.

your final job will be to disband it, before it becomes another tired old environmental organization spouting outmoded wisdom, wasting resources, and doing more harm than good.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing, and human activity is the probable cause.

they'll reregulate within ten years. There'll be a string of crashes, and they'll do it. the free marketeers will scream, but the fact is, free markets don't provide safety. Only regulation does that. You want safe food, you better have inspectors. You want safe water, you better have an EPA. You want a safe stock market, you better have an SEC. And you want safe airlines, you better regulate them too. Believe me, they will.

The same people who are coldly clear-eyed about the world around them have nothing but fantasies about themselves.

then they had pollo con ajillo, chicken with garlic, and a bottle of portuguese red wine. my god, we're going to stink after this, angela said.

The purpose of history is to explain the present—to say why the world around us is the way it is. History tells us what is important in our world, and how it came to be. It tells us why the things we value are the things we should value. And it tells us what is to be ignored, or discarded. That is true power—profound power. The power to define a whole society.

life finds a way.

The world changes. Ideologues and zealots don't.

The theory of eugenics postulated a crisis of the gene pool leading to the deterioration of the human race. The

Used to be - in the old days - the media image roughly corresponded to reality. But now it's all reversed. The media image is the reality, and by comparison day-to-day life seems to lack excitement. So now day-to-day life is false, and the media image is true. Sometimes I look around my living room, and the most real thing in the room is the television. It's bright and vivid, and the rest of my life looks drab. So I turn the damn thing off. That does it every time. Get my life back.

She laughed, and he saw one of her front teeth was chipped. This little imperfection only made him love her more