Crichton got an MD from Harvard but never practiced. Instead he wrote books that were almost always better than the many movies made from them. He did exhaustive research before writing.

He wrote The Andromeda Strain, The Terminal Man, The Great Train Robbery, Congo, Sphere, Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, Disclosure, The Lost World, ER, Westworld., Coma, Looker, Runaway and more.

State of Fear may be his best. It is fiction but explains reality when it delves into how a cabal including lawyers, media, academia, politicians and others exploit us and profit in money and power by keeping us in a constant State of Fear with a neverending supply of fears.

So much prescient reality in a fictional novel.

quote:
“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.”
- Michael Crichton, State of Fear

quote:
“Right now, scientists are in exactly the same position as Renaissance painters, commissioned to make the portrait the patron wants done, And if they are smart, they'll make sure their work subtly flatters the patron. Not overtly. Subtly.”
- Michael Crichton, State of Fear

quote:
“I have more respect for people who change their views after acquiring new information than for those who cling to views they held thirty years ago. The world changes. Ideologues and zealots don’t.”
- Michael Crichton, State of Fear

quote:
“Once again, claims of moral superiority are used to justify extreme actions. Once again, the fact that some people are hurt is shrugged off because an abstract cause is said to be greater than any human consequences. Once”
- Michael Crichton, State of Fear

quote:
“If there’s anything worse than a limousine liberal,” Morton said, “it’s a Gulfstream environmentalist.”
- Michael Crichton, State of Fear

quote:
“based on UN statistics, is that before the DDT ban, malaria had become almost a minor illness. Fifty thousand deaths a year worldwide. A few years later, it was once again a global scourge. Fifty million people have died since the ban,”
- Michael Crichton, State of Fear

quote:
“Politicians need fears to control the population. Lawyers need dangers to litigate, and make money. The media need scare stories to capture an audience. Together, these three estates are so compelling that they can go about their business even if the scare is totally groundless. If it has no basis in fact at all. For instance, consider silicon breast implants.”

quote:
“My point is, there is always a cause for fear. The cause may change over time, but the fear is always with us. Before terrorism we feared the toxic environment. Before that we had the Communist menace. The point is, although the specific cause of our fear may change, we are never without the fear itself. Fear pervades society in all its aspects. Perpetually.”
- Michael Crichton, State of Fear

quote:
“I am leading to the notion of social control, Peter. To the requirement of every sovereign state to exert control over the behavior of its citizens, to keep them orderly and reasonably docile. To keep them driving on the right side of the road—or the left, as the case may be. To keep them paying taxes. And of course we know that social control is best managed through fear.”
- Michael Crichton, State of Fear

quote:
“So what you need,” Henley said, “is to structure the information so that whatever kind of weather occurs, it always confirms your message. That’s the virtue of shifting the focus to abrupt climate change. It enables you to use everything that happens. There will always be floods, and freezing storms, and cyclones, and hurricanes. These events will always get headlines and airtime. And in every instance, you can claim it is an example of abrupt climate change caused by global warming. So the message gets reinforced. The urgency is increased.”
- Michael Crichton, State of Fear

quote:
“Expertise is no shield against failure to see ahead. Paul Erlich, a brilliant academic who has devoted his entire life to ecological issues, has been wrong in nearly all his major predictions. He was wrong about diminishing resources, he was wrong about the population explosion, and he was wrong that we would lose 50% of all species by the year 2000. His lifelong study of these issues did not prevent him from being wrong.”
- Michael Crichton, State of Fear

quote:
“Most areas of intellectual life have discovered the virtues of speculation, and have embraced it wildly. In academia, speculation is usually dignified as theory. It’s fascinating that even though the intellectual stance of the post-modern deconstructionist era is against theory, particularly overarching theory, in reality what every academic wants to express is theory. This is, in part, aping science, but it’s also an escape hatch. Your close textual reading of Jane Austen could well be wrong, and could be shown to be wrong by a more knowledgeable critic. But your theory of radical feminization and authoritarian revolt in the work of Jane Austen—with reference to your own childhood feelings—is untouchable. Similarly, your analysis of the origins of the First World War could be debated by other authorities. But your New Historicist essay, which includes your own fantasy about what it would be like if you were fighting in the first war…well, that’s unarguable. And even better, how about a theory of the origin of warfare beginning with Paleolithic cave men? That’s really unarguable.”
- Michael Crichton, State of Fear

quote:
“Like a bearded nut in robes on the sidewalk proclaiming the end of the world is near, the media is just doing what makes it feel good, not reporting hard facts. We need to start seeing the media as a bearded nut on the sidewalk, shouting out false fears. It’s not sensible to listen to it.”
- Michael Crichton, State of Fear

quote:
“With so many past failures, you might think that environmental predictions would become more cautious. But not if it’s a religion. Remember, the nut on the sidewalk carrying the placard that predicts the end of the world doesn’t quit when the world doesn’t end on the day he expects. He just changes his placard, sets a new doomsday date, and goes back to walking the streets. One of the defining features of religion is that your beliefs are not troubled by facts, because they have nothing to do with facts.”
- Michael Crichton, State of Fear

quote:
“There is a peculiar neo-Stalinist mode of thought that is required to support all this, and it can thrive only in a restrictive setting, behind closed doors, without due process. In our society, only universities have created that—so far. The notion that these institutions are liberal is a cruel joke. They are fascist to the core, I’m telling you.”
- Michael Crichton, State of Fear

This post was edited on 5/11/26 at 9:21 am