Quotes from The Swarm

Frank Schätzing ·  881 pages

Rating: (12.1K votes)


“I'm a reasonable kind of guy. If I hear something that seems to make sense, I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. If the alternative explanation has to be pounded into shape before it fits the mould of our experience, it seems to me that it's unlikely to be true.”
― Frank Schätzing, quote from The Swarm


“And yet most people would be lost without the idea that life increases in value the more it resembles our own.”
― Frank Schätzing, quote from The Swarm


“It was the mystery that biologists from Darwin onwards had been longing to solve. How could we understand the ability of fish and seals to survive in the cold dark waters of the Antarctic? How could humans see inside a biotope that was sealed with layers of ice? What would the Earth look like from the sky, if we crossed the Mediterranean on the back of a goose? How did it feel to be a bee? How could we measure the speed of an insect’s wings and its heartbeat, or monitor its blood pressure and eating patterns? What was the impact of human activities, like shipping noise or subsea explosions, on mammals in the depths? How could we follow animals to places where no human could venture?”
― Frank Schätzing, quote from The Swarm


“Los pueblos originarios siempre viven dosificadamente de algo que los blancos luego despilfarran. Una vez que lo han despilfarrado, se frotan los ojos y quieren protegerlo. Entonces lo protegen de aquellos de quienes nunca fue necesario protegerlo, y presumen de ello.”
― Frank Schätzing, quote from The Swarm


“People are learning to grasp the diversity of nature, to understand its unifying principles and to sweep away the hierarchies and see the real connections.”
― Frank Schätzing, quote from The Swarm



“For us to perceive intelligence, it has to fit within our behavioural framework.”
― Frank Schätzing, quote from The Swarm


“Averages might mean something to bureaucrats and engineers, but the sea had no truck with statistics: it was a succession of unpredictable circumstances and extremes. A particular stretch of water might have an average wave height of ten metres, but if you were hit by a one-off thirty-metre monster that statistically didn’t exist, the average would be of precious little comfort: you would die.”
― Frank Schätzing, quote from The Swarm


“Gli scienziati ritenevano che il limite inferiore delle dimensioni corporee per un essere intelligente fosse dieci centimetri, e quindi la possibilità di trovare un Aristotele che zampettava era praticamente pari a zero. Figuriamoci un Aristotele unicellulare.”
― Frank Schätzing, quote from The Swarm


“He shrugged. ‘Worms. Two big ones.”
― Frank Schätzing, quote from The Swarm


About the author

Frank Schätzing
Born place: in Cologne, Germany
Born date May 28, 1957
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“You can fall in love again with someone you're already in love with. It's like waking from a dream within a dream and finding another layer, the colors more vivid, the light more lucid, the fantasy more real. Being in love is an endless loop of waking to reverie.”
― Elliot Wake, quote from Cam Girl


“The very idea beggared his imagination, but that only meant his imagination was too limited.”
― Will Wight, quote from Unsouled


“You look at me, not him. As someone who loves him, it’s my responsibility to protect him from people who hurt him when he can’t bring himself to do it. As long as I’m in Randy’s life, this version of you isn’t welcome.” Randy”
― Helena Hunting, quote from Pucked Under


“It was brave," countered Issa. "It was rare. It was love, and it was beautiful.”
― Laini Taylor, quote from Days of Blood and Starlight


“But the characteristic that is truly special about our species...[is] our ability to model our world and understand both it and where we fit into its overall scheme....”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Garden of Rama


Interesting books

Cry, the Beloved Country
(56.5K)
Cry, the Beloved Cou...
by Alan Paton
The 5th Wave
(318.5K)
The 5th Wave
by Rick Yancey
Snow Crash
(198K)
Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson
The Summoning
(141.6K)
The Summoning
by Kelley Armstrong
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
(360.2K)
World War Z: An Oral...
by Max Brooks
Crown of Midnight
(214.6K)
Crown of Midnight
by Sarah J. Maas

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.