10 Best Jurassic Park Quotes That We’re Still Thinking About 32 Years Later

Jurassic Park debuted in theaters in 1993, and 32 years later, the movie remains one of the most quotable of Steven Spielberg’s career, and certainly of the dinosaur genre. Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel Jurassic Park first told the tale of billionaire entrepreneur John Hammond building a theme park of dinosaurs cloned from pre-historic DNA. The novel was an immediate best-seller, and made it to the big-screen three years later in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, which became the highest grossing movie ever made to that point. Jurassic Park spawned multiple sequels and an entire media franchise, cementing itself as THE dinosaur-based franchise, but it all goes back to the impact the original Jurassic Park had.

Not only did Jurassic Park bring dinosaurs to life with some of the best visual effects of its time, but it is also a highly-quotable movie. Jeff Goldblum snags the lion’s share of iconic Jurassic Park quotes with his performance as Dr. Ian Malcolm, but David Koepp and Michael Crichton’s script is packed with unforgettable lines from the movie’s other characters, as well. Here are the 10 Jurassic Park movie quotes that cement the movie’s iconography over three decades later.

“Must go faster!”

One of Jurassic Park‘s most iconic lines is one of the sort that every audience member would say in the situation of a T-Rex being in hot pursuit of them. As Robert Muldoon (Bob Peck), Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and the injured Dr. Malcolm head back for the safety of the Visitor’s Center, the unleashed T-Rex gives chase, eager to chow down on her next meal. As the T-Rex gets closer, Dr. Malcolm admonishes Muldoon “Must go faster!” in pure Jeff Goldblum fashion. So iconic and hilarious was Dr. Malcolm’s line to pick up speed in Jurassic Park, Goldblum later famously recited “Must go faster!” thrice to Will Smith as the duo flee pursuing aliens in their massive mothership during the finale of 1996’s Independence Day.

“And before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunch box, and now, you’re selling it, you want to sell it!”

As the dinosaur population of Jurassic Park is unveiled to the park’s first tour group, the group of scientists react with a mix of awe-struck wonder and skeptical trepidation. Particularly nervous about the idea of bringing dinosaurs back to life is Dr. Ian Malcolm, who chides John Hammond (Sir Richard Attenborough) about the dangers of such generic experimentation. As Malcolm argues, Hammond and Jurassic Park’s scientists were so blinded by the possibilities of resurrecting dinosaurs into the modern world as a capitalist venture, they failed to forsee how it could go wrong, leading to Malcolm’s iconic line, said while pounding the lunch table. Oft-quoted and always done so verbatim, Dr. Malcolm’s line is a timeless warning about the dangers of trying to turn dinosaurs into a multi-billion dollar theme park attraction.

“The only one I’ve got on my side is the blood-sucking lawyer!”

John Hammond’s attempt to sell the tour group of scientists on Jurassic Park’s safety and security doesn’t go as he’d hoped. In addition to Dr. Malcolm’s aforementioned concerns, Dr. Sattler expresses her own uneasiness (“There are plants in this building that are poisonous. You picked them because they look good”), and his Hail Mary to get one pre-tour endorsement out of Dr. Grant also ends in failure. In the end, Hammond still takes it in stride, chuckling the hilarious line, which the lawyer in question, Donald Gennaro (Martin Ferrero), receives with a simple “Thank you.” In addition to its warning about the dangers of playing God, Jurassic Park seemingly isn’t the biggest fan of corporate lawyers.

“What have they got in there? King Kong?”

As the first tour into Jurassic Park begins, the two tour cars enter the the park through a towering set of swinging doors bearing the park’s name, leading Dr. Malcolm to quip “What have they got in there? King Kong?” Malcolm’s line adds some levity to the inaugural Jurassic Park tour, but also acts as a fun Easter egg of film history for 1933’s King Kong. The residents of Skull Island similarly protect themselves from Kong’s wrath behind a similar wall with swinging doors, through which they also offer human sacrifices to Kong. Malcolm’s line ultimately harkens back to the majesty and terror of pre-historic creatures hidden behind a wall with a bit of King Kong trivia, and which foreshadows the futility of trying to contain the dinosaurs as no more effective than the same attempt for Kong.

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“Shoot her! Shoot her!”

The first timeless quote of Jurassic Park arrives in the movie’s opening scene with the park’s security team unloading a Velocipator into her designated observation pen. The effort ends up going disastrously, with the Raptor knocking the loading pen away from the main pen’s doorway, and viciously attacking a park worker. As the Jurassic Park team tries to subdue the Raptor with tasers, Robert Muldoon proclaims “Shoot her! Shoot her!” in a last ditch and ultimately failed effort to save the park worker’s life. Not only is it one of Jurassic Park‘s most iconic quotes, it’s easily the movie’s most tragic.

“All I’m say is that life, uh, finds a way.”

The scientists of Jurassic Park and well as John Hammond are convinced they’ve got security and population control in the park on a lock, partly by engineering the entire dinosaur population to be female. Dr. Malcolm, of course, remains unconvinced, and monologues that such artificial restrictions on life have never taken hold. Asked by the incredulous Dr. Henry Wu (B.D. Wong) if he believes that the park’s entirely female population will reproduce, Dr. Malcolm responds with the iconic line. Standing the test of time as another unforgettable Ian Malcolm/Jeff Goldblum quote, “Life finds a way” eventually found its way onto the poster for 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom as the movie’s tagline.

“Spared no expense.”

John Hammond is just as much a salesman as he is an entertainer, as exemplified by his running quote throughout Jurassic Park of “Spared no expense.” Hammond drops the line on everything from park security to the choice of Richard Kiley to narrate the park tour to even the choice of ice cream kept in the Visitor’s Center’s dining room. Hammond’s quote has a double meaning in the context of Jurassic Park‘s story, illustrating his shrewd acumen as an entrepreneur to take Jurassic Park tourists on the ultimate adventure, and also demonstrating that no amount of money can make his dream of a dinosaur-filled theme park a safe venture.

“Clever girl.”

Few propositions are as deadly as hunting Velociraptors, as Robert Muldoon discovers when he tries to take down a pair of escaped Raptors while Dr. Sattler tries to restore Jurassic Park’s power. Thinking he’s got one Raptor in locked, another pops up right next to him, with Muldoon commending the Raptor as a “Clever girl” before being tackled and devoured before he can turn his shotgun on his new target in time. Funnily enough, Muldoon’s demise perfectly recaptures Dr. Grant’s Raptor attack scenario early in the movie, with the attack from Jurassic Park‘s most intelligent dinosaur indeed coming not from the front, but from the side.

“That is one big pile of sh-t.”

Seriously, what Jurassic Park fan hasn’t quoted this line ad infinitum? As Dr. Sattler examines the dung of a sick Triceratops to diagnose her illness, Dr. Malcolm offers the most blunt reaction to it possible with his comment “That is one big pile of sh-t”. Easily the biggest laugh line of Jurassic Park, Dr. Malcolm’s one-liner has been forever immortalized with memes and GIFs on top of being eternally quoted, and will surely continue that trend for decades to come.

“Life found a way.”

One of Jurassic Park‘s most enduring quotes pays off another, specifically Dr. Malcolm’s skepticism that the dinosaurs of the park can’t breed due to all of them being female with Malcolm’s rebuttal of “Life, uh, finds a way.” Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) discovers just how right Dr. Malcolm was as he guides Lex and Tim back to the Visitor’s Center, discovering the remains of dinosaur eggs along the way, indicating that the dinosaurs are breeding. Dr. Grant hypothesizes that, with the dinosaur’s cloned DNA having been supplemented with frog DNA to fill in the gaps of their pre-historic genes, some of the park’s dinos have begun changing sex, as some West African frogs are known to do, to facilitate breeding in a single-sex environment. “Life found the way,” Dr. Grant comments, confirming Dr. Malcolm’s once seemingly impossible theory and delivering an immortal line capturing how timeless a dinosaur classic Jurassic Park will always be.

Jurassic Park is available to stream on Hulu and AMC+, and Jurassic World Rebirth will be released in theaters on July 2nd.