Michael Crichton quotes

Michael Crichton was an American author, screenwriter, and filmmaker, acclaimed for his work in science fiction and thrillers. His novels, such as "Jurassic Park" and "The Andromeda Strain", have captivated millions and inspired major Hollywood films. He became a household name for blending cutting-edge science with gripping storytelling. Here are 141 of his quotes:

In the information society, nobody thinks. We expected to banish paper, but we actually banished thought.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Michael Crichton

Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Michael Crichton

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

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.

Michael Crichton

Discovery, they believe, is inevitable. So they just try to do it first. That's the game in science.

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.

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.

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.

Michael Crichton

When you have a strongly held belief, don't you think it's important to express that belief accurately?

Michael Crichton

The extreme positions of the Crossfire Syndrome require extreme simplification - framing the debate in terms which ignore the real issues.

Michael Crichton