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8269831
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But if planting deadly ferns at poolside was any indication, then it was clear that the designers of Jurassic Park had not been as careful as they should have been.
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Michael Crichton |
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558e52d
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Because the history of evolution is that life escapes all barriers. Life breaks free. Life expands to new territories. Painfully, perhaps even dangerously. But life finds a way." Malcolm shook his head."
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Michael Crichton |
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c1a34e1
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They are not free at all. They are essentially our prisoners.
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prisoners
science-fiction
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Michael Crichton |
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58bd02d
|
Grant liked kids--it was impossible not to like any group so openly enthusiastic about dinosaurs. Grant used to watch kids in museums as they stared open-mouthed at the big skeletons rising above them. He wondered what their fascination really represented. He finally decided that children liked dinosaurs because these giant creatures personified the uncontrollable force of looming authority. They were symbolic parents. Fascinating and frigh..
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Michael Crichton |
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3b3d386
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Because in the late twentieth century, you couldn't seriously ask other people to think that you believed in honor and truth, and the purity of the body, the defense of women, the sanctity of true love, and all the rest of it. But apparently, Andre really had believed it.
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marek
timeline
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Michael Crichton |
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671f8f2
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we have created a man with not one brain but two. ... This new brain is intended to control the biological brain. ... The patient's biological brain is the peripheral terminal -- the only peripheral terminal -- for the new computer. ... And therefore the patient's biological brain, indeed his whole body, has become a terminal for the new computer. We have created a man who is one single, large, complex computer terminal. The patient is a re..
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computers
science-fiction
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Michael Crichton |
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013eef4
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I have more respect for people who change their views after acquiring new information than for those who cling to views they held thirty years ago. The world changes. Ideologues and zealots don't.
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Michael Crichton |
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9489f30
|
This may be why Einstein once said; "Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the enquiring and constructive mind." The fact is that we need the insights of the mystic every bit as much as we need the insights of the scientist. Mankind is dimi..
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spirituality
science
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Michael Crichton |
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6d9abe9
|
Skeptical scientists often point out, as Carl Sagan has, that the wonders of real science far surpass the supposed wonders of fringe science. I think it is possible to invert that idea, and to say that the wonders of real consciousness far surpass what conventional science admits can exist.
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science
skepticism
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Michael Crichton |
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6c42cd1
|
Life is actually a series of encounters in which one event may change those that follow in a wholly unpredictable, even devastating way.
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Michael Crichton |
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1be80d1
|
You know what's wrong with scientific power?... It's a form of inherited wealth... Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual Guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to..
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science
life
meaning-of-life
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Michael Crichton |
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53bb00d
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The internal psychological pressure to make up a story, to explain the ruins before one's eyes, is powerful indeed.
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Michael Crichton |
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74df8d8
|
Too much change is as destructive as too little. Only at the edge of chaos can complex systems flourish.
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Michael Crichton |
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25c4b47
|
I'll tell you the problem with engineers and scientists. Scientists have an elaborate line of bullshit about how they are seeking to know the truth about nature. Which is true, but that's not what drives them. Nobody is driven by abstractions like 'seeking truth.'
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Michael Crichton |
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57c5ae0
|
Hammond turned to Gennaro. "You know, of course, what Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler do. They are paleontologists. They dig up dinosaurs." And then he began to laugh, as if he found the idea very funny."
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Michael Crichton |
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f1056e0
|
Like everything else I'd seen at Xymos, it was jerry-built, half-baked, concocted in a hurry to solve present problems and never a thought to the future.
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Michael Crichton |
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62b5ef9
|
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.
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Michael Crichton |
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4292d38
|
lys hnk wllh khwf '`Zm nt khwf lnsn Hyn l y`rf lsbb
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Michael Crichton |
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a85b8e3
|
Sometimes I think everyone's an attorney.
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Michael Crichton |
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d77c7d4
|
All heart surgeons are bastards, and Conway is no exception.
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Michael Crichton |
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0608fc8
|
You can't get decent Mexican food in DC.
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Michael Crichton |
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cd57b15
|
Opleteniiat v zhitsi sviat e sm'rt. Vseki biolog znae, che malkite izolirani grupi se razvivat nai-b'rzo. Ako ostavite khiliada ptitsi na ostrov sred okeana, teshch e se razviiat mnogo b'rzo. Ako gi ostavite na goliam kontinent, evoliutsiiata im shche se zabavi. Pri nashiia vid, pri khorata, evoliutsiiata se os'shchestviava predimno chrez povedenieto. Za da se prisposobim, pribiagvame k'm nov tip povedenie. A vseki znae, che novoto se poiav..
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lost-world
malcolm
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Michael Crichton |
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7500d12
|
Herger said to me, "Be thankful, for you are fortunate." I inquired the source of my fortune. Herger said in reply, "If you have the fear of high places, than this day you shall overcome it; and so you shall have faced a great challenge; and so you shall be adjudged a hero."
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Michael Crichton |
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1ac273c
|
The truth was, the more he got portrayed as an unprincipled, ruthless prick, the more clients flocked to him. Because when it came to divorce, people wanted a ruthless prick. They lined up for one.
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Michael Crichton |
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65e82ee
|
They're engineers," she said. She was thinking, What did he expect? He must have dealt with engineers at GM. "Emotionally, they're all thirteen years old, stuck at the age just before boys stop playing with toys, because they've discovered girls. They're all still playing with toys. They have poor social skills, dress badly--but they're extremely intelligent and well trained, and they are very arrogant in their way. Outsiders are definitely..
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Michael Crichton |
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48c91ed
|
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 ..
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Michael Crichton |
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c72fd49
|
Sitting in the deserted law offices, Sanders had the feeling that he was all alone in the world, with nobody but Fernandez and the encoraching darkness. Things were happening quickly; this person he had never met before today was fast becoming a kind of lifeline for him.
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Michael Crichton |
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c4f3b3f
|
The trouble with this country," he said, "is that the women have no guts.They'd rather slink off and have a dangerous, illegal operation performed than change the laws. The legislators are all men, and men don't bear babies; they can afford to be moralistic."
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Michael Crichton |
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3ee4b8a
|
Whether it was Disney or the Navy, management guys always behaved the same. They never understood the technical issues; and they thought that screaming was the way to make things happen. And maybe it was, if you were shouting at your secretaries to get you a limousine. But screaming didn't make any difference at all to the problems that Arnold now faced. The computer didn't care if it was screamed at. The power network didn't care if it was..
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Michael Crichton |
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0efe824
|
Mass media swamps diversity. It makes every place the same. Bangkok or Tokyo or London: there's a McDonald's on one corner, a Benetton on another, a Gap across the street. Regional differences vanish. All differences vanish. In a mass-media world, there's less of everything except the top ten books, records, movies, ideas.
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Michael Crichton |
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4e597c5
|
It is not easy to cut through a human head with a hacksaw.
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Michael Crichton |
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13873a7
|
ttwqf l'shy lGrby@ `n 'n tkwn kdhlk bf`l ltkrr
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Michael Crichton |
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e61b7d5
|
Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won't use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won't abuse it.
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Michael Crichton |
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6acdf76
|
But we have soothed ourselves into imagining sudden change as something that happens outside the normal order of things. An accident, like a car crash. Or beyond our control, like a fatal illness. We do not conceive of sudden, radical, irrational change as built into the very fabric of existence. Yet it is.
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Michael Crichton |
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ed1d6cf
|
Whoever has the power in society determines what can be studied, determines what can be observed, determines what can be thought.
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Michael Crichton |
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5de9ff8
|
The late twentieth century has witnessed a remarkable growth in scientific interest in the subject of extinction. It is hardly a new subject--Baron Georges Cuvier had first demonstrated that species became extinct back in 1786, not long after the American Revolution. Thus the fact of extinction had been accepted by scientists for nearly three-quarters of a century before Darwin put forth his theory of evolution. And after Darwin, the many c..
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Michael Crichton |
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383ca04
|
Because there haven't been any advances," Malcolm said. "Not really. Thirty thousand years ago; when men were doing cave paintings at Lascaux, they worked twenty hours a week to provide themselves with food and shelter and clothing. The rest of the time, they could play, or sleep, or do whatever they wanted. And they lived in a natural world, with clean air, clean water, beautiful trees and sunsets. Think about it. Twenty hours a week. Thir..
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Michael Crichton |
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8b610e1
|
These kids were smart, they were enthusiastic, and they were young enough so that the schools hadn't destroyed all their interest in learning. They could still actually use their brains, which in Thorne's view was a sure sign they hadn't yet completed a formal education.
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Michael Crichton |
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b6f7fc6
|
The reason I ask," Malcolm said, "is that I'm told large predators such as lions and tigers are not born man-eaters. Isn't that true? These animals must learn somewhere along the way that human beings are easy to kill. Only afterward do they become man-killers." "Yes, I believe that's true," Grant said. "Well, these dinosaurs must be even more reluctant than lions and tigers. After all, they come from a time before human beings--or even lar..
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Michael Crichton |
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2443e65
|
What is your itinerary?" "To meet my maker." "Ah. Well. You're in luck. And what do you want to say to your maker?" "A most mechanical and dirty hand [laughs]. I shall have such revenges on you...both. The things I will do, what they are, yet I know not. But they will be the terrors of the earth. You don't know where you are, do you? You're in a prison of your own sins."
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Michael Crichton |
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c8701e4
|
And because you can stand on the shoulders of giants, you can accomplish something quickly.
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Michael Crichton |
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b33a174
|
In the lobby of the visitor center, the glass doors had been shattered, and a cold gray mist blew through the cavernous main hall. A sign that read WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH dangled from one hinge, creaking in the wind.
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Michael Crichton |
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61a5d06
|
I suspect that scientists are driven by the sense that the world out there - reality - contains a hidden order, and the scientist is trying to elucidate the hidden order in our reality. And that impulse is what the scientist shares with the mystic. The impulse to get to the bottom of things. To know how the world really works. To know the nature of things.
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science
mysticism
|
Michael Crichton |
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7dd752c
|
The world was not how you wanted it to be. The world was how it was.
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Michael Crichton |