Michael Crichton
81 quotes
Biography
John Michael Crichton was an American author and filmmaker. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and over a dozen have been adapted into films.
"If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree."
"Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice."
"It's better to die laughing than to live each moment in fear."
"God creates dinosaurs, God kills dinosaurs, God creates man, man kills God, man brings back dinosaurs."
"Discovery is always rape of the natural world. Always."
"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."
"Everyone has a hidden agenda. Except me!"
"Praise not the day until evening has come, a woman until she is burnt, a sword until it is tried, a maiden until she is married, ice until it has been crossed, beer until it has been drunk."
"You know what's wrong with scientific power? It's a form of inherited wealth. And you know what assholes congenitally rich people are."
"Friendships are nice. So is competence."
"Nobody is driven by abstractions like 'seeking truth."
"Extrapolating from the statistical growth of the legal profession, by the year 2035 every single person in the United States will be a lawyer, including newborn infants."
"I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way."
"He prays because he knows he doesn't control it. He's at the mercy of it."
"This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right."
"Although personally, I think cyberspace means the end of our species."
"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."
"La actual preocupación casi histérica por la seguridad es en el mejor de los casos un derroche de recursos y un obstáculo para el espíritu humano, y en el peor de los casos una invitación al totalitarismo. Se necesita con urgencia educación pública."
"Carr was left with a ring, in the palm of his hand, a small gold circle, leading him nowhere."
"They passed a farmhouse, a simple shack surrounded by animals — a lazy burro, clucking chickens, a litter of pigs. The farmhouse stood alone in the desolate landscape. There was no sign of a living person anywhere. And then it was gone, lost in the swirling dust plume of the car."
"Let's be clear: all professions look bad in the movies. And there's a good reason for this. Movies don't portray career paths, they conscript interesting lifestyles to serve a plot. So lawyers are all unscrupulous and doctors are all uncaring. Psychiatrists are all crazy, and politicians are all corrupt. All cops are psychopaths, and all businessmen are crooks. Even moviemakers come off badly: directors are megalomaniacs, actors are spoiled brats. Since all occupations are portrayed negatively, why expect scientists to be treated differently?"
"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."
"Science is nothing more than a method of inquiry. The method says an assertion is valid — and merits universal acceptance — only if it can be independently verified. The impersonal rigor of the method means it is utterly apolitical. A truth in science is verifiable whether you are black or white, male or female, old or young. It's verifiable whether you like the results of a study, or you don't."
"I want to state emphatically that nothing in my remarks should be taken to imply that we can ignore our environment, or that we should not take climate change seriously. On the contrary, we must dramatically improve our record on environmental management. That is why a focused effort on climate science, aimed at securing sound, independently verified answers to policy questions, is so important now."
"Whatever I am doing, I wish I were doing one of the other things."