Best Quotes

The novel acts as a cautionary tale, warning readers against doing something (in this case, making an incredibly dangerous scientific advancement) just because it’s possible. Although InGen had the power to create dinosaurs, it didn’t mean they should do it. This is a lesson that all the characters learn in Jurassic Park. 

Nature and Chaos 

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.

The theory of chaos is one of the primary drivers in Jurassic Park. Dr. Ian Malcom expands on the theory throughout the book, suggesting that no matter how smart the scientists in Jurassic Park think they are, nature will always find a way to survive. To no greater degree is this illustrated than when the group discovers that the dinosaurs are, in fact, breeding. 

They believed that prediction was just a function of keeping track of things. If you knew enough, you could predict anything. That’s been cherished scientific belief since Newton.’
And?’
Chaos theory throws it right out the window.

This quote demonstrates the fallacy of believing that through science, “you could predict anything.” Malcolm firmly believes that chaos theory will play out on the island, and unfortunately for him and the other characters, the novel proves him correct. 

Value of Life

I believe my life has value, and I don’t want to waste it thinking about clothing . . . I don’t want to think about what I will wear in the morning. Truly, can you imagine anything more boring than fashion? Professional sports, perhaps. Grown men swatting little balls, while the rest of the world pays money to applaud. But, on the whole, I find fashion even more tedious than sports. 

This interesting quote implies that there is far greater meaning to life than possessions and money. Every life is important, including the dinosaurs on the island, and that should be respected in every way possible. Crichton uses this quote to remind readers of the difference between the real world of life and death (illustrated so powerfully in the novel) with what feels like the real world most of the time (depicted through fashion and sports). 

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.

In this quote, Crichton’s narrator considers how protagonist Alan Grant feels about life and geological time. Specifically, Grant understands how small humans are in the larger history of life and time. The “meaning of eighty million years” is unfathomable to human beings. This makes the arrogance of attempting to “play God” remarkable. 

Science and Discovery

Scientists are actually preoccupied with accomplishment. So they are focused on whether they can do something. They never stop to ask if they should do something.

This famous quote from Jurassic Park also made it into the Jurassic Park film in 1993. It represents the major mistake the InGen scientists made, at least in Dr. Ian Malcom’s mind. He believes that everyone involved with the project was so caught up in trying to accomplish something incredible that they never stopped to think about whether or not they should go ahead with it. It was this major mistake that was at the heart of the arrogance of Jurassic Park. 

But now science is the belief system that is hundreds of years old. And, like the medieval system before it, science is starting not to fit the world any more. 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. And our world starts to seem polluted in fundamental ways—air, and water, and land—because of ungovernable science.

This longer quote is another great example of the role that science, and the characters’ understanding of it, drives Jurassic Park forward. All of the characters in the novel have a respect for science, but some take that repeat farther than others. Dr. Grant and Dr. Malcom believe in respecting the natural world and how creatures operate within it. While Dr. Wu and John Hammond believe that science is theirs to do with as they see fit. They don’t, as the previous quote suggested, stop to think about whether they should or should not do something. Science has changed the world for the better, Crichton writes, but it also has the power to destroy it. 

Hard Work 

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 be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can’t be given away : it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline.

In this less-commonly quoted passage from Jurassic Park, Crichton writes about the power of hard work and how the result of one’s hard work is twofold. You get (or not) the thing you were striving for, and your mental and physical toughness improves because of the struggle it required along the way. It’s an increased strength that’s the “result of your discipline” and what “can’t be given away.” 

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