Book of Quotes

The Andromeda Strain

The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

- "In the light of the full moon, he could see them, big birds, gliding in slow circles over the buildings, passing like black shadows across the face of the moon."

- "Nothing ever happened at night."

- "These considerations lead me to believe that the first human interaction with extraterrestrial life will consist of contact with organisms similar to, if not identical to, earth bacteria or viruses. The consequences of such contact are disturbing when one recalls that 3 per cent of all earth bacteria are capable of exerting some deleterious effect upon man."

- "'A cut like that,' he said, 'on the face. Broken capillaries, shattered bone, torn scalp veins—it should bleed like hell.'"

- "SUMMARY OF ODD MAN HYPOTHESIS: First tested as null hypothesis by Wildfire advisory committee. Grew out of tests conducted by USAF (NORAD) to determine reliability of commanders in making life/death decisions."

- "Perhaps the most intelligent life form on a distant planet was no larger than a flea. Perhaps no larger than a bacterium."

- "Immediately, they saw it: a tiny black fleck of jagged material no larger than a grain of sand. There seemed to be bits of green mixed in with the black."

- "In his blackest hours, Stone doubted the utility of all thought, and all intelligence. There were times when he envied the laboratory rats he worked with; their brains were so simple. Certainly they did not have the intelligence to destroy themselves; that was a peculiar invention of man."

- "It was a perfect, six-sided hexagon, and it interlocked with other hexagons on each side."

- "I think we can be fairly confident that the organism will move into the upper atmosphere without causing further difficulty on the surface."

- "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."

- "Human intelligence was more trouble than it was worth. It was more destructive than creative, more confusing than revealing, more discouraging than satisfying, more spiteful than charitable."

- "In his blackest hours, Stone doubted the utility of all thought, and all intelligence. There were times he envied the laboratory rats he worked with; their brains were so simple. Certainly, they did not have the intelligence to destroy themselves; that was a peculiar invention of man."

- "Already, the brain consumed more than a quarter of the body's blood supply... an organ accounting for only a small percentage of body mass. If brains grew larger, and better, then perhaps they would consume more - perhaps so much that, like an infection, they would overrun their hosts and kill the bodies that transported them. Or perhaps, in their infinite cleverness, they would find a way to destroy themselves and each other. There were times when, as he [Stone] sat at State Department or Defense Department meetings, and looked around the table, he would see nothing more than a dozen gray, convoluted brains sitting on the table... Just brains, sitting around, trying to decide how to outwit other brains, at other conference tables.

Idiotic."

- "Men under stress are fools, and fool themselves."

- "By the early 1960's America had reluctantly come to realize that it possessed, as a nation, the most potent scientific complex in the history of the world. Eighty per cent of all scientific discoveries in the preceding three decades had been made by Americans. The United States had 75 per cent of the world's computers, and 90 per cent of the world's lasers. The United States had three and a half times as many scientists as the Soviet Union and spent three and a half times as much money on research; the U.S. had four times as many scientists as the European Economic Community and spent seven times as much on research."

- "He often argued that human intelligence was more trouble than it was worth. It was more destructive than creative, more confusing than revealing, more discouraging than satisfying, more spiteful than charitable."

- "The true aims of "Scoop" were to find new life forms that might benefit the Fort Detrick program. In essence, it was a study to discover new biological weapons of war."

- "When Leavitt gave him the file, Hall had read the note and whistled. "Don't you believe it," Leavitt said. "Just a scare?" "Scare, hell," Leavitt said. "If the wrong man reads this file, he just disappears."