Norman Macleod Quotes

I got interested in palaeontology and vertebrate history - sparked by books on human evolution - then vertebrate evolution. Studying with palaeontologists kindled my interest in fieldwork.

Almost all paleontologists recognize that the discovery of a complete transition is in any case unlikely.

Is it philosophical, is it quite allowable, to assume without evidence from fossil plants that the family or any of the genera was once larger and wide spread? and occupied a continuous area?

Certainly paleontologists have found samples of an extremely small fraction, only, of the earth's extinct species, and even for groups that are most readily preserved and found as fossils they can never expect to find more than a fraction.

At school I briefly wanted to be a palaeontologist, but I was no good at chemistry and physics.

If we could magically transport ourselves back to the young Earth, when it was only a billion years old or two billion years old or three billion years old or four billion years old, we wouldn't be able to survive. We would have a hard time surviving if we were transported to the time when dinosaurs were around.

I don't like to say bad things about paleontologists, but they're not very good scientists. They're more like stamp collectors.

Fossils have richer stories to tell - about the lub-dub of dinosaur life - than we have been willing to listen to.

Most importantly, I agree that the truth of these matters should be determined by interpretation of scientific evidence - experiments, fossil studies and the like.

I can't think of any other region in the world which is such a vast source of fossils.

Lucy brought with her an image of our human ancestors that you don't get when you find a jaw or an arm bone or a leg bone. Here was 40 percent of a single skeleton.

A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.

There's always a bit of fiction in everything that I write.

The fossil record is incredible when it preserves things, but it's not a complete record.

Are we the first hominids? I really, really, really doubt it.

I sometimes say that I don't make anything up - obviously that's not true. But I am uninterested in writers who say that everything comes out of the imagination. I would rather be in a room with someone who is telling the story of his life, which may be exaggerated and even have lies in it, but I want to hear the true story, essentially.

I like fiction and the kind of history that gives the grace and flavor of fiction to the past. No bloviation on current events, please. I can write that junk myself.

One important idea I hope is reflected in 'The Poe Shadow' is that fiction can add as much to history as nonfiction does.

I offer detailed but mostly invented narratives about the provenance of my books.

I think most of the dinosaur specimens we find represent subadult sizes.

The Burgess Shale is not unique, but for those who study evolution and fossils it has become something of an icon. It provides a reference point and a benchmark, a point of common discussion and an issue of universal scientific interest.

A memoir is my version of events. My perspective. I choose what to tell and what to omit. I choose the adjectives to describe a situation, and in that sense, I'm creating a form of fiction.

All the great history has been written with passion …. Fiction is history from below.

Autobiographical fiction is very tricky.

Pikaia is a missing link because, of all chordates, it's probably the most primitive.