The Andromeda Strain

On the cover of the file was stenciled WILDFIRE, and underneath, an ominous note:"Scare, hell," Leavitt said. "If the wrong man reads this file, he just disappears."

— The Andromeda Strain

As Stone was fond of saying, scientific research was much like prospecting: you went out and you hunted, armed with your maps and your instruments, but in the end your preparations did not matter, or even your intuition. You needed your luck, and whatever benefits accrued to the diligent, through sheer, grinding hard work.

— The Andromeda Strain

He [Stone] often argued that human intelligence was more trouble than it was worth. It was more destructive than creative, more confusing than revealing, more discouraging than satisfying, more spiteful than charitable.

— The Andromeda Strain

The biologist R. A. Janek has said that "increasing vision is increasingly expensive." He meant by this that any machine to enable men to see finer or fainter details increased in cost faster than it increased in resolving power.

— The Andromeda Strain