Jurassic Park: 10 Best Alan Grant Quotes

There will be significant fan interest for Jurassic World 3 come 2021 when we get the main trio of Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, and Ian Malcolm back together for the final film in the series. Alan’s inclusion has sparked particular interest due to his position as one of the main protagonists in the original Jurassic Park trilogy.

No matter how good or badly received the film he was in turned out, Alan has always been a favorite for the fans due to the coolness factor he brings and the definite genius he has when it comes to the subject of paleontology. To bring you up to speed on Alan’s character, here are 10 of his best quotes.

10 “You Bred Raptors…?”

Unlike Ian Malcolm, Alan seemed to be on board with the idea of Jurassic Park opening its doors, and was excited to see a brand new dinosaur hatching from her egg – until he was told what kind of dinosaur it was that he was holding. 

Being an expert in velociraptor paleontology, Alan saw the first signs of red flags flying when he realized InGen was messing about with raptors. The scene was sent into a chilling U-turn as Alan struggled with comprehending that advanced killers like raptors were now meant to co-exist with humanity.

9 “Life Found A Way…”

The thought of more dinosaurs on the island was definitely scary to say the least, but Alan still had respect for nature and the life it brought with it. Earlier, Ian had claimed that “life finds a way” and was rather ridiculed for thinking so as the dinosaurs were engineered to be female.

However, Alan happened upon fresh dinosaur eggs out in the wild, meaning the hatchlings had become male due to their biological data granting them a way to “switch” their genders and eventually allow them to reproduce. Alan couldn’t help but smile at how nature took back control from humans as life did indeed find a way to thrive.

8 “Ian, Freeze!”

That T-Rex entry was scarier than any horror movie we’ve seen or might see, as she tore apart the barrier containing her and signaled the destruction of Jurassic Park to come. Here, we learned that Ian and Alan were made of stern stuff as they took to rescuing the kids the T-Rex was attacking. 

Alan’s plan was working like a charm before Ian intervened. Although he meant well, Alan saw that Ian was needlessly putting himself in harm’s way and pleaded for him to freeze as the T-Rex wouldn’t be able to see him. For a few seconds, every viewer’s heart was in their throat as Alan said what they’d been thinking.

7 “…You Wouldn’t Even Know They Were There.”

The establishment of Alan’s characterization was set in his first scene as he was shown becoming annoyed by a young boy who scoffed at the idea of raptors being dangerous. Rather than play along, Alan took to antagonizing the kid to put him in his place. 

He explained, in excruciating detail, how the raptors took on a pack mentality when hunting their prey, and how the one who would actually initiate the attack pounced from the side. This left the boy scarred at the prospect of such a horrible death, although he did deserve to be scared for showing Alan such disrespect.

6 “Its-It’s A Dinosaur!”

At various points in the movie, Alan was the audience surrogate as he perfectly illustrated how every one of us who watched Jurassic Park felt when the dinosaurs were introduced in all their glory for the first time. 

Here, Alan was left speechless as he saw his life’s work – which had generally been dead before him – was now walking right in front of his eyes. The sight of that enormous dinosaur did, at least for a few sweet hours, evoke the sense of wonder and awe that John Hammond desired from his audience.

5 “There Are Those That Want To Be Astronomers And Those That Want To Be Astronauts…That’s The Difference Between Imagining And Seeing.”

In a way you can sympathize with the people who made Jurassic Park even though it was playing with God’s work, as the prospect of seeing living and breathing dinosaurs is something no-one would want to pass up.

Alan also came to understand this, and devised a theory that there were two kinds of people: Those who were willing to study from a safe place, and those who wanted to experience these larger-than-life things on their own. Even though it was life-threatening to go with the latter option, at least in that scenario one got to experience the Jurassic world for what it was.

4 “Hey, What Did I Touch?”

There was a running gag in the first film that technology didn’t seem to like Alan, and this was seen in effect too as whatever he seemed to touch would go haywire. For this reason, Alan was convinced he was the one responsible for things going awry before the T-Rex was released.

Of course, it was actually Dennis Nedry’s machinations that were causing the power failure, but Alan’s penchant for ruining technology was such that he was willing to blame himself. It just goes to show how out of touch he was with the progressing world.

3 “They’re Moving In Herds…They Do Move In Herds.”

Nowadays, people in popular media associate “herds” with the zombies we see on The Walking Dead and other shows, but those of us who remember the feeling of the first Jurassic Park film’s experience will always hark back to Alan’s comment about dinosaur herds.

When he first laid eyes on them, the Brachiosaurus’ were moving in herds as they grazed the land for food, which brought tears to Alan’s eyes as he found out he was right all along about these dinosaurs’ behavior of moving in herds. 65 million years’ worth of proof was grazing right in front of him.

2 “Reverse Darwinism: Survival Of The Most Idiotic.”

After his adventures in Jurassic Park, Alan took on a more sarcastic and straight-to-business attitude in life and was disillusioned by the idea of taking needless risks. This is why he took on a snarky demeanor to Billy’s story about his near-death experience in New Zealand.

When Billy shared that he thought his bag strap was lucky because it saved his life during that freak accident, Alan wasn’t impressed in the slightest and claimed that “Reverse Darwinism” was in effect. Rather than the fittest surviving, the most idiotic got lucky, as far as Billy’s story was concerned.

1 “Mr. Hammond, After Careful Consideration, I Have Decided Not To Endorse Your Park.”

The whole misadventure Alan had in the first movie was because John Hammond wanted an endorsement from the former to give Jurassic Park the go-ahead. Ellie and Ian had been apprehensive about giving their nods of approval, but Alan had remained undecided.

Once he’d been to hell during the events of the story, Alan had more than made up his mind and his last line in the film was to confirm to John that the answer from his end was a resounding “no.” This came in the form of him promising that he’d given it a “careful consideration” before coming to his decision. Almost being savaged by a T-Rex and raptors might have influenced that final decision.

About The Author

Saim Cheeda
(1348 Articles Published)

Saim Cheeda is an entertainment writer covering all of Film, TV, Gaming and Books. He’s been a writer for Valnet since 2017, contributing 500+ articles for The Gamer, The Things, Game Rant, Comic Book Resources and Screen Rant. Apart from freelance writing, Saim is a lifestyle blogger, co-owning the blog 3 States Apart.

http://3statesapart.com

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