Micro Quotes
"One can argue that the new generation of schoolchildren will emerge even more certain. If nothing else, school teaches that there is an answer to every question; only in the real world do young people discover that many aspects of life are uncertain, mysterious, and even unknowable."
"Human beings interact with complex systems very successfully. We do it all the time. But we do it by managing them, not by claiming to understand them."
"Interacting with the natural world, we are denied certainty. And always will be."
"Perhaps the single most important lesson to be learned by direct experience is that the natural world, with all its elements and interconnections, represents a complex system and therefore we cannot understand it and we cannot predict its behavior."
"If someone claims to predict what a stock will do in the coming days, we know that person is either a crook or a charlatan."
"It's an intellectual desert. The best minds stay in universities so they don't have to prostitute themselves."
"He makes it sound as if he had spent years in the remote Amazon backwaters. In fact, he had spent four months doing research in a national park in Costa Rica."
"Nanigen had supposedly spent millions of dollars on electronics from Shanghai and Osaka. Some of those suppliers probably wanted to know what was being done with their products."
"If this is suicide, it's three guys without notes, and nobody ever heard of that."
"The truth of life on our planet is very different. The real bedrock fundamental life—teeming, burrowing, breeding, continuously active—is down here, at this level."
"A rain forest is the greatest repository of active chemical compounds in nature."
"We humans live on the surface. We think that’s where the life is. We think in terms of people and elephants and sharks and forests of trees."
"Nature is fundamentally indifferent. It’s unforgiving, uninterested."
"The discoveries of every culture are valuable, and all other cultures borrow from one another."
"Nature, Danny. Not us. All we can do is go for the ride and try to hang on."
"This forest is terra incognita, absolutely unknown terrain."
"The balance of power lies in the hands of the entity that always holds the balance of power—nature."
"The real bedrock fundamental life is down here, at this level. And this is where the discoveries are going to be made."
"We’re only as strong as the weakest member of our team."
"In the academic world, you guys got ahead by cutting down your rivals and proving you’re smarter than everybody else. In this forest, it’s not about getting ahead, it’s about staying alive."
"We survive with brains, weapons, and cooperation—teamwork."
"Let’s think of it as the chance of a lifetime to see incredible things in nature no one has ever seen before."
"If no trace of them is found, there will be a…reward. Failure is the only option."
"If the rescue effort fails, the reward for each of you will be one share of Nanigen ground-floor stock. When Nanigen goes public, a single share will be worth at least a million dollars. Get it?"
"You are a brave man, Danny. I never realized it until now."
"It is better to journey hopefully than to arrive."
"Be quiet and don’t move. They have keen eyesight and sharp hearing."
"Insects are attracted to light. If we have a fire, it could draw predators from hundreds of meters away."
"You should see yourself, Peter. Frightened by a butterfly."
"I want to look into these disappearances at Nanigen."
"I’ve hurt so many people in my life. No way to make it up now."
"Comfortable with murder, Rick realized, while a hot rage welled up in him."
"He noticed his blowgun lying on the ground, picked it up, grabbed the dart kit, and sprinted for cover."
"The inevitable has happened…We are completely, totally, utterly…dead."
"He was looking right up at the man. The man wore a helmet, a breastplate, armored plates over his arms. His chin was bare. Bare neck."
"It made him want to kill. Even if it cost him his life."
"It was a man just Rick’s size. A micro-human."
"Spiders digest their food outside their bodies."
"It was an enormous spider, as big as a house."
"Then the spider venom was Ebola in thirty seconds."
"Having digested its prey, the spider placed its mouth firmly on the food ball and began sucking fluids out of the mess."
"The eyes gleamed with a faraway expression, Karen thought, or maybe a look of satisfaction."
"Rick was still holding the blow tube. Get off a dart at that bastard, anyway."
"He opened his dart kit and took out a dart. Looked at it with a sense of futility."
"His body swelled up as the venom pressurized it, until his armor began to make popping sounds, and blood mixed with venom began squirting out of the cracks in the armor."
"He stepped forward. It was then that Karen saw the shadow behind the man."
"Having located the neck joint, she let go of the neck with one hand, grabbed her knife, then slipped the tip of her knife into the crack."
"Karen pulled herself away and knelt by Rick and took his hand. She was shaking badly. "I did it.""
"Out of the corner of his eye, Rick saw movement behind her. He blinked his eyes and shouted in his mind: Look out!"
"A noise at her back made Karen whirl around. Just in time she saw the stinger coming, and jumped aside as the abdomen slammed her into the wall."
"She delicately extricated herself from under the sting, avoiding contact with the liquid and blades."
"He seemed completely paralyzed. Rick’s face looked like a mask. Eyes moving, blinking, but no expression."
""Can you blink?" she asked. "If you blink your eyes, it means yes. If you don’t blink, it means no. Can you understand me?""
"She knelt by Rick and studied him. Danny huddled nearby, crouching to keep out of the wind."
"The truth doesn’t set you free, it sends you to prison."
"You decide what you want. I have to tell you the truth."
"I won’t take orders from Vin Drake anymore. I’m like pau hana."
"A confession never failed to give Watanabe a sense of surprise."
"I understand you want to tell me what happened to the missing students."
"Nanigen is about medicine. It’s just that Nanigen is working both sides of the street."
"I was born in Puko‘o," Makele went on. "That’s a little spot on East Moloka‘i."