Michael Crichton

Safety is the last refuge of the scoundrel!

We are one of only three species on our planet that can claim to be self-aware, yet self-delusion may be a more significant characteristic of our kind.

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.

Human beings are so destructive,” Malcolm said. “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.

The DNA molecule was so old that its evolution had essentially finished more than two billion years ago.

Science has attained so much power that its practical limits begin to be apparent. Largely through science, billions of us live in one small world, densely packed and intercommunicating. But science cannot help us decide what to do with that world, or how to live. Science can make a nuclear reactor, but it cannot tell us not to build it. Science can make pesticide, but cannot tell us not to use it.

Exercise invigorates the body and sharpens the mind.

You are the reason why he exists on this earth. You don't have the right to abandon him just because he's inconvenient or has trouble in school.

Science is as corruptible a human activity as any other.

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.

The internal psychological pressure to make up a story, to explain the ruins before one's eyes, is powerful indeed.

At forty, I was too old to work as a programmer myself anymore; writing code is a young person’s job.

Grant knew that people could not imagine geological time. Human life was lived on another scale of time entirely. An apple turned brown in a few minutes. Silverware turned black in a few days. A compost heap decayed in a season. A child grew up in a decade. None of these everyday human experiences prepared people to be able to imagine the meaning of eighty million years - the length of time that had passed since this little animal had died.

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.

Men under stress are fools, and fool themselves.