How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"We live in a world of frightful givens. It is given that you behave like this, given that you will care about that. No one thinks about the givens." (2.14.14)
Malcolm doesn't pay much attention to fashion trends or professional sports—at least not to the particulars. They interest him only in so far as they represent the fact that people behave, think, and feel in ways that have already been prescribed for them. It's expected that you will like sports, just as it's expected that you will not offend the day's fashion. But few people, Malcolm says, stop to think about where these expectations come from. (Malcolm is kind of channeling the Frankfurt School of Marxist Critical Theory here, if you're into that kind of thing.)
Quote #2
"And I trust by now that you all know what the eventual outcome is going to be. You're going to have to shut the thing down." (2.14.18)
Ian Malcolm clearly hasn't seen the movie trailers for Jurassic World. The park is open for business, and more people are going to die. Okay, so maybe someone should have listened to him.
Quote #3
"Theory tells me that the island will quickly proceed to behave in unpredictable fashion." (2.14.59)
As a mathematician, Malcolm works and thinks in terms of calculations. For that reason, he's very theoretical, and he trusts that his theories will to correspond to reality even when signs suggest he's wrong. In the novel, at least, his theorizing proves accurate. So is Malcolm different from the other scientists, or is his kind of knowledge just more accurate?