Michael Crichton citations

Page 3

“Les Mangeurs de morts fut conçu à la suite d'un pari. En 1974, mon ami Kurt Villadsen se proposait de préparer un cours universitaire qu'il voulait intituler Les Grands Raseurs. Ce cours devait rassembler tous les textes considérés comme essentiels pour la civilisation occidentale, mais qu'en vérité personne ne lit plus à moins d'y être obligé, parce qu'ils sont très ennuyeux. Et le premier de ces grands raseurs, selon lui, serait le poème épique Beowulf.
Je contestai ce jugement, arguant que le Beowulf était un récit dramatique et exaltant - et que je pouvais le prouver. Je rentrai chez moi et me mis immédiatement à prendre des notes en vue de la rédaction de ce roman.”

“Mais assurément, le jeu que joue le livre avec ses bases factuelles se fait de plus en plus complexe à mesure qu'il se développe, jusqu'au moment où le texte devient assez difficile à évaluer. Je m'intéresse depuis longtemps à la vraisemblance, au détail qui nous fait prendre quelque chose pour réel, à celui qui nous fait comprendre qu'il s'agit d'une fiction. Mais je conclus finalement que dans Les Mangeurs de morts, j'avais poussé le jeu trop loin. Pendant que j'écrivais, j'avais l'impression que la réalité et la fiction étaient parfaitement délimitées; par exemple, l'un des traducteurs cité, Per Fraus-Dohus, signifie littéralement en latin « par tromperie-fourberie ». Mais au bout de quelques années, je ne pouvais plus distinguer avec certitude les passages vrais des passages inventés; à un certain stade, j'allai même un jour dans une bibliothèque universitaire pour essayer de retrouver certaines références de ma bibliographie, concluant finalement, après des heures de recherches frustrantes, que, malgré leur aspect convaincant, elles devaient être fictives. J'étais furieux d'avoir perdu mon temps, mais je ne pouvais m'en prendre qu'à moi. (…) En ces circonstances, je devrais peut-être préciser que les notes de cette postface sont authentiques. Le reste du roman, y compris l'introduction, le texte, les notes et la bibliographie, doit être considéré comme de la fiction.”

“They didn't understand what they were doing. I'm afraid that will be on the tombstone of the human race. I hope it's not. We might get lucky.”

“Science is as corruptible a human activity as any other.”

“In the corner store we pulled fat bottles of water from the shelves. No one thinks it's weird that we have to buy clean water, and that's how I know we're going to hell.”

“Geniuses never pay attention.”

“Friendships are nice. So is competence.”

“Do you want to understand how to swim, or do you want to jump in and start swimming? Only people who are afraid of the water want to understand it. Other people jump in and get wet.”

“Nobody dares to solve the problems-because the solution might contradict your philosophy, and for most people clinging to beliefs is more important than succeeding in the world.”

“A man can see by starlight, if he takes the time.”

“Raising children is, in a sense, the reason the society exists in the first place. It's the most important thing that happens, and it's the culmination of all the tools and language and social structure that has evolved.”

“The rock, for its part, is not even aware of our existence because we are alive for only a brief instant of its lifespan. To it, we are like flashes in the dark.”

“Working inspires inspiration. Keep working. If you succeed, keep working. If you fail, keep working. If you are interested, keep working. If you are bored, keep working.”

“All human behavior has a reason. All behavior is solving a problem.”

“False fears are a plague, a modern plague!”

“It is especially difficult for modern people to conceive that our modern, scientific age might not be an improvement over the prescientific period.”

“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.”

“Extrapolating from the statistical growth of the legal profession, by the year 2035 every single person in the United States will be a lawyer, including newborn infants.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy. The list of consensus errors goes on and on.”

“"I would give anything to know what you thought at the moment you died," Pierce said. His voice echoed in the tomb. The flame went out.”

“Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible. In one context, maybe you will get some mobilization against nuclear war. But in another context, you get Lysenkoism. In another, you get Nazi euthanasia. The danger is always there, if you subvert science to political ends.”

“They passed a farmhouse, a simple shack surrounded by animals — a lazy burro, clucking chickens, a litter of pigs. The farmhouse stood alone in the desolate landscape. There was no sign of a living person anywhere. And then it was gone, lost in the swirling dust plume of the car.”

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

“I want to make 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. I believe it is essential to act in ways that are sympathetic to the environment, now and in the future. I believe that the world has genuine problems and I believe they must be addressed effectively.
But I also think that deciding what constitutes responsible action is immensely difficult, and I believe the consequences of our actions are often difficult to know in advance.”

“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.”

“Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle to determine what is true is the struggle to decide which of our perceptions is genuine, and which are false because they are handed down, or sold to us, or generated by our own hopes and fears.”

“As the twentieth century drew to a close, the connection between hard scientific fact and public policy became increasingly elastic. In part this was possible because of the complacency of the scientific profession; in part because of the lack of good science education among the public; in part, because of the rise of specialized advocacy groups which have been enormously effective in getting publicity and shaping policy; and in great part because of the decline of the media as an independent assessor of fact.”