The Great Zoo of China

Hamish shrugged. “It’s all pretty cool and impressive … if you never saw fucking Jurassic Park.

If dragons were real, then in all likelihood they were not graceful, high-chested, noble creatures; rather they would have been dirty, ugly, reptilian and mean.

Holy shit, she thought. The dragons are throwing cars at me!

The airliner-sized dragon blew apart in a monumental spray of blood and pulp. Great chunks of flesh the size of boulders rained down from the sky. “The empire is striking back,” Ambassador Syme observed, peering out the window beside CJ.

Fairytales cleanse and sanitise what were once true stories. In fairytales, knights are chivalrous, clean-shaven and wear shining armour—when in truth they were swarthy, filthy rapists and thugs. Castles are bright and gay when in truth they were grim fortresses.

A monster movie is only as good as the monster in it.

Convincing someone to believe something that was inherently unbelievable often meant getting that person to make a quick and easy comparison to something they already knew.

Over twenty men died during the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, Dr Lynch. Does anyone regret that? No, all anyone sees is a marvel of its time, a great achievement in human ingenuity.

Are you a doctor?” Li said. “I’m better than that. I’m a vet. Vets do everything: brain surgery, heart surgery, lab analysis, dislocations –

Come not between the dragon and his wrath. —William Shakespeare King Lear

Yo. Salt-and-Pepper. The name is Go-Go or Mr Go-Go, okay?

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him. —J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1937)

One of the things I have come up against time and again in my career is the notion that because a book is easy to read it was somehow easy to write.

Myths arise from actual events, remarkable events that get talked about precisely because they are remarkable and which then get embellished in the retelling.

When the President asks you to do something, you’d be surprised how keen you are to oblige,” Syme said.

German-made Heckler & Koch MP-7 submachine guns with special compact M40 grenade launchers under the barrels.

In fairytales, knights are chivalrous, clean-shaven and wear shining armour—when in truth they were swarthy, filthy rapists and thugs. Castles are bright and gay when in truth they were grim fortresses.

The myth of the dragon is a very peculiar one, precisely because it is a truly global myth. Giant serpents appear in mythologies from all over the world: China, Scandinavia, Greece, Persia, Germany, Central America, the United Kingdom, even Africa. There is no discernible reason for this. How could the myth of a large serpentine creature be so consistent across the ancient world? From: Dragons in History by Eleanor Lock (Border Press, London, 1999)

Sometimes you had to make the animals perform.

The Legend of the Dragon Fairytales cleanse and sanitise what were once true stories. In fairytales, knights are chivalrous, clean-shaven and wear shining armour—when in truth they were swarthy, filthy rapists and thugs. Castles are bright and gay when in truth they were grim fortresses. If dragons were real, then in all likelihood they were not graceful, high-chested, noble creatures; rather they would have been dirty, ugly, reptilian and mean. From: The Power of Myth by Craig Ferguson (Momentum, Sydney, 2013)

A limitless supply of cheap labor might build you a new city every year, but it ultimately just makes you the factory floor for other countries’ companies.

Dragons in History by Eleanor Lock (Border Press, London, 1999)

The man who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself. —Friedrich Nietzsche

The zoo’s “image consultants” from New York had been very clear about this: establish your believability first, then go tabloid.