The Dinosaur Hunter Quotes

“It didn't matter if three hundred million years passed, our part in the timeline would be there, affecting everything that was to come.”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“Any time a man hits a woman, it's no longer between him and her.”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“He reached into the box to pick up a smooth, curiously shaped object that I thought looked like the end of a leg bone. I was disappointed when he said,
“This is a sandstone concretion. Not a bone.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I have a PhD in paleontology and a master's degree in geology, Mike. I know bones and rocks.”

- Exchange between Mike and Pick”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“There's things a whole helluva lot worse than being dead and one of ‘em is not being free.”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“When you get to where you're going, it's probably time to stop.”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“I guess he didn't have confidence in his own mystic philosophy when things got rough. Funny how that works.”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“I still had a suspicion that a load of coprolite (so to speak) was about to be dumped on all our heads.”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“Hell, what were we supposed to do? He's an adult.”
“He's not an adult, you rat bastard!” I yelled.
“He's a paleontologist!”

- Exchange between Mike and Carl”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“[The courthouse] represented a busy, prosperous future the men who built it had expected but that had not occurred. In their heads, they had gone to a time that did not exist but was very real to them (…). In our time, we saw they were wrong but since they never knew, what difference did it make to them? They had enjoyed our time, in effect, a lot better than we were.”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“Actually, I think they were enjoying knocking down Blackie Butte and it was fun, make no mistake about that. It made me think of my trip to Delphi in Greece with the second wife. Delphi is a mountain of ancient Greek monuments that are somewhat battered. What had battered them? Our guide said after the classical period, probably goatherds on top of the mountain with nothing better to do than to roll rocks and chunks of monuments down the hill just to see what they'd do. In short, it was fun to make stuff roll down hills and the Marsh brothers were having the time of their lives.”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“We humans can be such idiots about this planet. We think it's fragile. In fact, we're the ones who
are fragile. We screw up our world, it'll kill us, and go on as if we never existed.”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“Ted climbed up beside us. He was in jeans, a white T-shirt that said BLM in black letters on the back and a blue hat with yellow letters that also spelled out BLM. If I hadn't known it already, I would have guessed he worked for the BLM.”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“By the way, I tried being a vegetarian once but
I kept having strange dreams.”
“What about?”
“That I wanted a steak and couldn't have one.”
“I have that dream all the time,” I confessed. “Then I go out and help a heifer have a calf and I forget it.”
“You help a heifer have a calf? Cowboys are really that lonely?”

- Exchange between Mike and Laura”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“Never hire a man with a straw hat because he'd spend all day chasing it.”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“Tell a guilty man you're through with your questions and you'll see relief in his eyes. Every time. He just can't hide it.”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“For a paleontologist, being lost is not necessarily a bad thing. It means I see places I wouldn't otherwise see.”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“Every bone has its own history. Mostly that history is one of violence.”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“These days, people get tattoos for lots of reasons - fashion, boredom, in search of a personality, or for no reason at all.”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“Tall, bald, about a mile wide at the shoulders, a hawk bill for a nose, and a couple of ears that would have made Dumbo proud, this guy had not only been hit by the ugly stick, he'd been pounded.”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“If you want to tick a Fillmore County rancher off, ask him how big his ranch is, how many cattle he has, and how many guns he owns.”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter

“I don't dig. I like to say that's why God makes grad students.”
― Homer Hickam, The Dinosaur Hunter