Quotes by "Michael Crichton"

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.

No one escapes from life alive.

Everyone has a hidden agenda. Except me!

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.

The nasty little apes that call themselves human beings can do nothing except run and hide.

You can't get decent Mexican food in DC.

Sometimes I think everyone's an attorney.

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.

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

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.

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

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

A wonderful area for speculative academic work is the unknowable. These days religious subjects are in disfavor, but there are still plenty of good topics. The nature of consciousness, the workings of the brain, the origin of aggression, the origin of language, the origin of life on earth, SETI and life on other worlds...this is all great stuff. Wonderful stuff. You can argue it interminably. But it can't be contradicted, because nobody knows the answer to any of these topics.

Friendships are nice. So is competence.

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.

Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice.

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.

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

A hundred years from now, people will look back on us and laugh. They'll say, 'You know what people used to believe? They believed in photons and electrons. Can you imagine anything so silly?' They'll have a good laugh, because by then there will be newer better fantasies... And meanwhile, you feel the way the boat moves? That's the sea. That's real. You smell the salt in the air? You feel the sunlight on your skin? That's all real. 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.