Michael Crichton Quotes - Page 2

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• 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

  Philosophy, Animal, Reality

  Michael Crichton (2012). “Congo”, p.166, Vintage

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• Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough.

  Michael Crichton

  Enough, Skepticism, Situation

  "Aliens Cause Global Warming". Caltech Michelin Lecture, January 17, 2003.

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• We all live every day in virtual environments, defined by our ideas.

  Michael Crichton

  Ideas, Environment, Live Every Day

  Michael Crichton (1996). “Michael Crichton: Two Complete Novels”, Wings

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• Keep working. Don't wait for inspiration. Work inspires inspiration. Keep working.

  Michael Crichton

  Inspiration, Waiting, Inspire

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• The truth is, almost nobody wants to experience real nature. What people want is to spend a week or two in a cabin in the woods, with screens on the windows. They want a simplified life for a while, without all their stuff. Or a nice river rafting trip for a few days, with somebody else doing the cooking. Nobody wants to go back to nature in any real way, and nobody does. It's all talk.

  Michael Crichton

  Real, Nice, Two

  Remarks to the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, www.cs.cmu.edu. September 15, 2003.

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• That's human nature. Nobody does anything until it's too late.

  Michael Crichton

  Doe, Too Late, Human Nature

  Michael Crichton (2002). “Prey”

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• Increasingly, people perceive no difference between the narcissistic self-serving reporters asking questions, and the narcissistic self-serving politicians who evade them.

  Michael Crichton

  Asking Questions, Self, Differences

  "Mediasaurus" by Michael Crichton, www.wired.com. April 1, 1993.

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• This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right.

  Michael Crichton

  Fascination, Disease, Computer

  "Aliens Cause Global Warming". Michael Crichton's Lecture, 2003.

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• Yes, you have cancer. Yes, your kids are on drugs. Yes, there is an elephant outside your tent. Now the question becomes, What are you going to do about it? Subsequent emotions may not be pleasant, but the hysteria stops. Hysteria accompanies an unwillingness to look at what is really going on; it promotes an unwillingness to look. We feel we are afraid to look, when actually it is not-looking that makes us afraid. The minute we look, we cease being afraid.

  Michael Crichton

  Cancer, Kids, Elephants

  Michael Crichton (2012). “Travels”, p.219, Vintage

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• I was raised with the idea that if you're not smart enough to do science you can do politics.

  Michael Crichton

  Smart, Ideas, Political

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• 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

  Moving, Jurassic Park, May

  Michael Crichton (1997). “Michael Crichton's Jurassic World”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

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• Often I feel I go to some distant region of the world to be reminded of who I really am. There is no mystery about why this should be so. Stripped of your ordinary surroundings, your friends, your daily routines, your refrigerator full of your food, your closet full of your clothes -- with all this taken away, you are forced into direct experience. Such direct experience inevitably makes you aware of who it is that is having the experience. That's not always comfortable, but it is always invigorating.

  Michael Crichton

  Taken, Clothes, Experience

  Michael Crichton (2012). “Travels”, p.10, Vintage

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• Science is nothing more than a method of inquiry. The method says an assertion is valid - and will be universally accepted - only if it can be reproduced by others, and thereby independently verified. The impersonal rigor of the method has produced enormously powerful results for 400 years. The scientific method 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 know the experimenter, or whether you don’t.

  Michael Crichton

  Mean, Acceptance, White

  Michael Crichton's Testimony before the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, www.epw.senate.gov. September 28, 2005.

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• Auschwitz exists because of politicized science.

  Michael Crichton

  Political, Auschwitz

  "Some Like It Hot" by Chris Mooney, www.motherjones.com. May/June 2005.

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• No one escapes from life alive.

  Michael Crichton

  Alive

  Michael Crichton (2012). “Congo”, p.192, Vintage

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• 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.

  Michael Crichton

  Religious, Fighting, Animal

  Michael Crichton (1996). “The lost world”

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• We need to get environmentalism out of the sphere of religion. We need to stop the mythic fantasies, and we need to stop the doomsday predictions. We need to start doing hard science instead.

  Michael Crichton

  Needs, Spheres, Fantasy

  Michael Crichton's Remarks to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, www.cs.cmu.edu. September 15, 2003.

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

  Michael Crichton

  Men, Earth, Dinosaurs

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• That is the danger we now face. And this is why the intermixing of science and politics is a bad combination, with a bad history. We must remember the history, and be certain that what we present to the world as knowledge is disinterested and honest.

  Michael Crichton

  Science, World, Faces

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

  Michael Crichton

  Determination, Men, Starlight

  Michael Crichton (2007). “Next”, HarperCollins UK

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• Human beings are so destructive. I sometimes think we're a kind of plague, that will scrub the earth clean. We destroy things so well that I sometimes think, maybe that's our function. Maybe every few eons, some animal comes along that kills off the rest of the world, clears the decks, and lets evolution proceed to its next phase.

  Michael Crichton

  Animal, Thinking, World

  Michael Crichton (1997). “Michael Crichton's Jurassic World”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

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• The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare.

  Michael Crichton

  Religious, Warfare, Conformity

  Michael Crichton (1996). “The lost world”

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• Theories are just fantasies. And they change.

  Michael Crichton

  Statistics, Fantasy, Theory

  Michael Crichton (1997). “The Lost World”, Knopf

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• We live in a world of frightful givens. It is given that you will behave like this, given that you will care about that. No one thinks about the givens. Isn't it amazing? In the information society, nobody thinks. We expected to banish paper, but we actually banished thought.

  Michael Crichton

  Fear, Thinking, World

  Michael Crichton (1997). “Michael Crichton's Jurassic World”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

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• Caring is irrelevant. Desire to do good is irrelevant. All that counts is knowledge and results

  Michael Crichton

  Caring, Desire, Results

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