Michael Crichton quotes

I am certain there is too much certainty in the world. (Michael Crichton)
In the information society, nobody thinks. We expected to banish paper, but we actually banished thought. View quote
Michael Crichton
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. View quote
Michael Crichton
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? View quote
Michael Crichton
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. View quote
Michael Crichton
I can tell you that second hand smoke is not a health hazard to anyone and never was, and the EPA has always known it. View quote
Michael Crichton
Finally, 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. View quote
Michael Crichton
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. View quote
Michael Crichton
In order not to be misunderstood, I want it perfectly clear that I believe it is incumbent on us to conduct our lives in a way that takes into account all the consequences of our actions, including the consequences to other people, and the consequences to the environment. View quote
Michael Crichton
Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. View quote
Michael Crichton
Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. (Michael Crichton)
Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. View quote
Michael Crichton
In the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don't know any better. View quote
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. View quote
Michael Crichton
Environmentalism needs to be absolutely based in objective and verifiable science, it needs to be rational, and it needs to be flexible. And it needs to be apolitical. To mix environmental concerns with the frantic fantasies that people have about one political party or another is to miss the cold truth - that there is very little difference between the parties, except a difference in pandering rhetoric. View quote
Michael Crichton
You've never heard of Chaos theory? Non-linear equations? Strange attractors? Ms. Sattler, I refuse to believe you're not familiar with the concept of attraction. View quote
Michael Crichton
He prays because he knows he doesn't control it. He's at the mercy of it. View quote
Michael Crichton
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. View quote
Michael Crichton
Discovery, they believe, is inevitable. So they just try to do it first. That's the game in science. View quote
Michael Crichton
You know what's wrong with scientific power? It's a form of inherited wealth. And you know what assholes congenitally rich people are. View quote
Michael Crichton
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. (Michael Crichton)
All your life people will tell you things. And most of the time, probably ninety-five percent of the time, what they'll tell you will be wrong. View quote
Michael Crichton
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. View quote
Michael Crichton
When you have a strongly held belief, don't you think it's important to express that belief accurately? View quote
Michael Crichton
The extreme positions of the Crossfire Syndrome require extreme simplification - framing the debate in terms which ignore the real issues. View quote
Michael Crichton