Quotations from *Eaters of the Dead*
Michael Crichton
1942- American

I inquired if any of the warriors had ever seen such monsters. “Indeed, we have all seen them,” Herger said. “Why else should we know of them?”
—Michael Crichton, Eaters of the Dead

Yet I have discovered that if all those around you believe some particular thing, you will soon be tempted to share in that belief, and so it was with me.
—Michael Crichton, Eaters of the Dead

The North people account themselves keen judges of beauty in women. But in truth, all their women seemed to my eyes to be emaciated, their bodies all angles and lumpy with bones; their faces, too, are bony and the cheeks set high.
—Michael Crichton, Eaters of the Dead

In all the lands I have traveled, and so also within the round walls of the City of Peace, verily in every location where men gather and make for themselves a society, I have learned these things to be truths. First, that the peoples of a particular land believe their customs to be fitting and proper and better than any other. Second, that any stranger, a man or also a woman, is accounted inferior in all ways save in the matter of generation. Thus the Turks believe the Persians gifted lovers; the Persians stand in awe of the black-skinned peoples; and they in turn of some others, severally; and so it continues, sometimes by reason given of proportion of genitalia, sometimes by reason given of endurance in the act, sometimes by reason given of especial skill or posturing.
—Michael Crichton, Eaters of the Dead

A wolf that lies in its lair never gets meat.
—Michael Crichton, Eaters of the Dead

Do not think ahead, and be cheerful by knowing that no man lives forever.
—Michael Crichton, Eaters of the Dead

Strictly speaking, no hypothesis or theory can ever be proven. It can only be disproven. When we say we believe a theory, what we really mean is that we are unable to show that the theory is wrong—not that we are able to know, beyond doubt, that the theory is right.
—Michael Crichton, Eaters of the Dead