Jennie Quotes

“I have not felt her presence, as I had always believed I should if she should predecease me. Where is she? I am afraid for her, and for myself.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“The poison in the arrow that had struck her was, in chemical structure, like curare; it paralyzed first, killed second. It is not a merciful death: one dies fully conscious and aware of one’s surroundings.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“their relationship had a spiritual dimension. Think about that for a moment. Language is power. Prentiss was like a spiritual guide. She gave Jennie power—and Jennie used it.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“Jennie never did reject me, however. Oh no. She loved me to the very end. Her love for me was more powerful than anything the Archibalds could undermine.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“Nobody knows what language is. It isn’t just speech, that’s for sure. But try to explain that to some of these reductionist structural linguists.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“I felt that I was witnessing the beginnings of a great sea change in America. I was deeply moved. Through this terrible ordeal of Vietnam, I believed, we might finally see America becoming what the founding fathers had envisioned, a nation with a moral purpose in the world and a nation that cared about all its citizens. We might see the end of the cynical Nixon-Kissinger version of realpolitik. It hasn’t turned out that way, but then we are all a little older and wiser.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“We didn’t use food as a reward. As some previous ASL researchers did. Jennie’s reward was making herself understood. That is, she was rewarded like a human child would be rewarded. We wanted to replicate the way a human child acquires language. You don’t cram food into an infant every time she says something, now, do you? Of course not.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“At what point in evolution did man acquire the knowledge of good and evil, and thus the capacity to be damned? In this light, the story of Adam and Eve takes on deeper significance. It is a parable of evolution.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“jennie confirmed my suspicions that television advertising is directed mainly at people with the iq of a pongid”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“Love, sex, family, the pleasures of food, intellectual delight, friendship, appreciation of beauty, the pleasure of exercise and good health, the excitement of sport and adventure -- all these qualities were given to us, not by God, but by evolution.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“Jennie taught me just how worthless that is. Being smart. Jennie wasn’t smart by human standards, but she had a set of values. Real values. You see, for Jennie, freedom was the highest value. Language gave Jennie freedom. Although I didn’t know it at the time, she taught me the real meaning of the word “freedom,” not the bullshit meaning you get from politicians and priests.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“She created a new world for herself. It blew my mind to see this animal acquire language. And then literally reshape her world with it.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“Jennie had a set of values, but she didn’t realize they were different values from the rest of us. She never could understand why she was always in trouble. In the end, I mean. She didn’t know what it was that made her angry all the time. I’ll tell you what it was. It was very simple: it was our society trying to break her, trying to make her a nice middle-class person.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“The good people of Kibbencook, indeed all human beings, want answers, not questions, from their religious leaders. No matter.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“the guilt and suffering of Judas Escariot. I do not believe, however, that the congregation took to it. I asked the question: Was Judas chosen for the deed? It was prophesied, was it not? Where, then, is the guilt?”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“Here we are, two of the world’s experts on chimpanzee behavior, and we have no idea how to control this one animal.” And he laughed bitterly. For the first time in my life I felt at a total loss. I had no idea what to do, no answer for him. I felt only dread for what the future might hold.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“So, after half a million, what did the chimps say?” Well, not much, when you really analyze it. That wasn’t the point, for God’s sake! And the scientists who supported us were afraid to object. They didn’t want to attract Proxmire’s attention. Cowards, every one.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“Here we were, spending all this taxpayer money teaching chimps a few hundred signs. They had no clue as to how this would illuminate our understanding of human linguistic development. Or the evolution of language. Proxmire had no idea that this research might enhance the way we teach language to retarded or handicapped children. There was no understanding of the revolutionary results of our work, and how it revealed for the first time the mind of an ape—and how it helped us understand what it means to be human.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“I do not begrudge the average American his ignorance. It’s a free country. But when you have elected officials, people who wield enormous power, who flaunt their ignorance, that is a different matter.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“We live in a nation of ignoramuses. The average American knows nothing about science. A man asked me once if the stars went away when the sun rose, or if they were still there but you just couldn’t see them. He was a stockbroker I had the misfortune of employing, a man who made over one hundred thousand dollars a year! Well, I took my investments away from him, damn quick! And then the market climbed five hundred points.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“While in estrus she found being confined intolerable, even though she had always slept in a locked room. We had to listen to her screaming and pounding much of the night, and one night during that first estrus she managed to break the lock and get out.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“She became particularly irritable toward me and Sandy. She would not allow us to approach her, let alone touch her, and she often broke into loud screams if we approached. She also became curiously incommunicative and ignored many of our efforts to sign to her. Lea and I knew well that chimpanzees become difficult when they reach puberty. And yet, we had managed to persuade ourselves that Jennie would be different. We felt we knew Jennie even better than we knew each other. We were wrong.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“she spent many hours whirling around trying to catch the monarch butterflies that floated among the milkweed and chokecherries. When she caught them, she cupped them in her hands and smelled them, as if they were flowers. When she released them, some would drop to earth traumatized or crushed, while others flew off in a spiraling panic while she watched, her hands and nose dusted with the orange powder from their wings.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“Sarah was nine years old that summer. Her passions were reading and music. Sarah devoured books, sometimes two a day. Lea had to check her every night to make sure she turned out her light, or she would read to all hours and drag herself down to breakfast with dark circles under her eyes.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“I suppose the whole thing was highly irregular from a legal point of view, but it was great fun. And nobody was having more fun than the judge. It wasn’t a real trial, you see, so he didn’t have to worry about all the legal niceties.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“I could see the reporter scribbling away as if his life depended on it. I suppose for him it was the scoop of a lifetime. Here he’d probably been sitting around for months doing the Kibbencook courthouse “beat,” and seeing nothing more interesting than a drunk driver. And now, isn’t it funny, but I wonder if Mr. Alterman didn’t have something to do with getting that reporter into the courtroom? I hadn’t thought about that before, but this case made Mr. Alterman famous. He was in Time magazine even.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“Jennie’s testimony was meaningless to determine the facts of the case, but that he was allowing it anyway. The judge wanted to see the signing chimpanzee in action.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“The minute the judge saw Jennie in her little blue suit with the big red bow, and saw her signing back and forth with the interpreter, he would never, ever, in a thousand years, find her a menace to society and order her destroyed. How could he? She was just like a little person!”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“Alterman had hired a professional ASL interpreter from the Somerville School for the Deaf. Her credentials were impeccable. She was terrific and we had very carefully coached Jennie and rehearsed her testimony. For days on end we rehearsed what Jennie was to say. If she were human I am sure it would have been illegal, coaching the witness the way we did.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel

“In the meantime, he said, he would have to take Jennie down to the pound. Hugo was magnificent. Very cool and patient. He. explained to the man who Jennie was, what she was, and why it was impossible to even think of putting her in the pound. He dropped hints about Jennie’s strength and how she could escape from any cage made for an animal. He frightened the poor man half to death. He said, well, under the circumstances it would be acceptable if Jennie were kept at home, fully restrained at all times, until the court date.”
― Douglas Preston, Jennie: A Novel