The Lost World (Jurassic Park, #2)

by Michael Crichton

Looking at the fossil record is like thumbing through a family photo album. You know that the album isn’t complete. You know life happens between the pictures. But you don’t have any record of what happens in between, you only have the pictures. So you study them, and study them. And pretty soon, you begin to think of the album not as a series of moments, but as reality itself. And you begin to explain everything in terms of the album, and you forget the underlying reality.

Because if the notion of life at the edge of chaos is true, then major change pushes animals closer to the edge. It destabilizes all sorts of behavior. And when the environment goes back to normal, it’s not really a return to normal. In evolutionary terms, it’s another big change, and it’s just too much to keep up with.

Like mass casualties after a heatwave

“All your life, other people will try to take your accomplishments away from you. Don’t you take it away from yourself.”