Richard Preston
Richard Preston
Richard Prestonis a New Yorker writer and bestselling author who has written books about infectious disease, bioterrorism, redwoods and other subjects, as well as fiction. Whether journalistic or fictional, his writings are based on extensive background research and interviews...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth5 August 1954
CountryUnited States of America
Richard Preston quotes about
great happens nature systems whatever
Whatever happens to the great systems of nature will also be what happens to us.
afraid deeply evil favor human inevitably knowledge looking nature possibly weapons
I'm all in favor of looking deeply into as much as we possibly can. I'm not afraid of knowledge... With all new technology, weapons inevitably emerge... Evil comes out of the human heart. It doesn't come out of nature.
happen love mad science scientists slightly stereotype truth
I happen to love science... Scientists are all slightly mad. There is truth in the stereotype of the mad scientist. They are mad with curiosity.
ahead believe biological continues human population stormy weather
I don't believe in a biological apocalypse, but I think there is stormy biological weather ahead as the human population continues to grow.
expanding human monster perceive population qualities science terrifying
Here's what's terrifying about Ebola. Ebola is invisible. It's a monster without a face. With the science that we have now, we can perceive Ebola as being not one thing but as a swarm, and the swarm is moving through the human population and expanding its numbers. It has the qualities of a monster.
bringing tigers
Green darners never attack people, but they have been seen bringing down hummingbirds. They are the Bengal tigers of the microworld.
afraid appear children closer humans roots run somewhat
If ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, then children are somewhat closer to our roots as primates in the arboreal forest. Humans appear to be the only primates that I know of that are afraid of heights. All other primates, when they're scared, they run up a tree, where they feel safe.
attempt bought disaster foster fox hot involving robert sitting
Fox bought the rights to the book way back when, and there was this attempt by Fox to make a movie out of 'The Hot Zone,' and it tended tragically in a Hollywood disaster involving Robert Redford and Jodie Foster and Ridley Scott. But the rights have been sitting at Fox ever since.
contact exact generally humans location rare revealing risky
Botanists have a tradition of never revealing the exact location of a rare plant. Contact between humans and rare plants is generally risky for the plants.
came cause enters explain exposed fatal medical might particle suggest workers
Experiments suggest that if one particle of Ebola enters a person's bloodstream, it can cause a fatal infection. This may explain why many of the medical workers who came down with Ebola couldn't remember making any mistakes that might have exposed them.
chance directly experts spread telling whether
What the experts are telling me is that there's very little chance that Ebola is going to mutate into something that could spread directly through the air. The real concern is not whether Ebola could go airborne, but whether it could spread faster.
across atlanta began came climb pros school special surfing techniques using
I was surfing the Internet, and I came across a school in Atlanta where you could learn how to climb trees with ropes the way the pros do. It sounded terrific, and so I went down there, and I began to learn these kind of rarified techniques for how you get up and down trees while using special ropes and gear.
ancient deep entered exactly history knows life though time tree
No one knows exactly when or where the redwood entered the history of life on earth, though it is an ancient kind of tree and has come down to our world as an inheritance out of deep time.
extremely red released resistant scent seeds size wood
The seeds of a redwood are released from cones that are about the size of olives. The heartwood of the tree is a dark, shimmery red in color, like old claret. The wood has a lemony scent and is extremely resistant to rot.