Michael Crichton

"This polarization of the issues has contributed greatly to our national paralysis, because it posits false choices which stifle debate essential to change. It is ironic that this should happen in a time of great social upheaval, when our society needs more than ever to be able to experiment with different viewpoints. But in the media world, a previously established idea, like a previously elected politician, enjoys a tremendous advantage over any challenger. Hence the familiar ideas continue to be repeated, long past their demonstrable validity."

"Egypt imbued the view with a heavy sense of mystery and foreboding."

"I want to state emphatically that nothing in my remarks should be taken to imply that we can ignore our environment, or that we should not take climate change seriously. On the contrary, we must dramatically improve our record on environmental management. That is why a focused effort on climate science, aimed at securing sound, independently verified answers to policy questions, is so important now."

"Being on the "Hold" is the technological equivalent of purgatory."

"I tried to tell which was Randall, but I could not; in their gowns and masks, they all looked the same, impersonal, interchangeable. That was not true of course. One of those four men had responsibility for everything, for the contact of all sixteen workers present. And responsibility for the seventeenth person in that room, the man whose heart was stopped."

"Whatever I am doing, I wish I were doing one of the other things."

"Leland Weston: "Never take a position unless you are certain it can be defended any onslaught. That may sound like good advice to a general, but then, a courtroom is nothing more then a very civilized war."

"In the conservative region far from the chaotic edge, individual elements coalesce slowly, showing no clear pattern." - Ian Malcolm"

"In a sense that is a part of the training: surgeons are lonely men."

"“The so-called time paradoxes,” Doniger said, “do not really involve time. They involve ideas about history that are seductive but wrong. Seductive, because they flatter you into thinking you can have an impact on the course of events. And wrong, because of course, you can’t.”"

"As I went down to my car, [Peter Randall] said, "If you dont want to get involved Ill understand" I looked back at him. "You know damn well Id have no choice." "I didnt," he said. "But I was hoping."

"Science is the most exciting and sustained enterprise of discovery in the history of our species. It is the great adventure of our time. We live today in an era of discovery that far outshadows the discoveries of the New World five hundred years ago."