Adaptation quotes:

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Adaptation is a profound process. Means you figure out how to thrive in the world. -- John Laroche
Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring. -- Henry Miller
It is a miracle of harmony, of the adaptation of the free inner life to the outward necessity of things. -- John Crowe Ransom
In all works on Natural History, we constantly find details of the marvellous adaptation of animals to their food, their habits, and the localities in which they are found. -- Alfred Russel Wallace
Remember that in every single case in history the process of adaptation has been one of exceeding slowness. Do not look for the impossible, but do not let your path deviate from the quiet and steadfast insistence on full opportunities for your powers. -- Franz Boas
You are what you love. Not what loves you. -- Charlie Kaufman
We must make the best of those ills which cannot be avoided. -- Alexander Hamilton
After Strangelove I also started work on an adaptation of The Collector. -- Terry Southern
Adaptation is a vital part of a response to the challenge of climate change -- Nicholas Stern
Curiously enough man's body and his mind appear to differ in their climatic adaptations. -- Ellsworth Huntington
Adaptation seems to be, to a substantial extent, a process of reallocating your attention. -- Daniel Kahneman
Science always has its origin in the adaptation of thought to some definite field of experience. -- Ernst Mach
Adaptation of books is never a success. When the author wants to make it, it's even worse. -- Marjane Satrapi
Adaptation is the only means to reduce the now-unavoidable costs of climate change over the next few decades -- Nicholas Stern
Adaptation can efficiently reduce the costs of climate change while atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are being stabilised -- Nicholas Stern
Complete adaptation to environment means death. The essential point in all response is the desire to control environment. -- John Dewey
Thus, races arose from an original coding which God pulled out as needed for adaptation to the environment. -- Walter Lang
I'm not afraid to play ugly - look at 'Adaptation.' I looked like a turd that a cat had coughed up. -- Nicolas Cage
Most films are rooted in a book or a comic strip, but I don't go out there saying I want to do adaptations. -- Ralph Fiennes
I think before 1997 is over, NATO will have taken giant strides in what's called adaptation, the discussions about bringing the French fully into the NATO forces. -- Warren Christopher
For the source of any characteristic so widespread and uniform as this adaptation to environment we must go back to the very beginning of the human race. -- Ellsworth Huntington
Keep on the lookout for novel ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea has to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you're working on. -- Thomas A. Edison
Both of these branches of evolutionary science, are, in my opinion, in the closest causal connection; this arises from the reciprocal action of the laws of heredity and adaptation. -- Ernst Haeckel
An adaptation leads the cinema-goer to the original to find out what they're missing and if they already know the book, it can still illuminate a theme, a character, an idea. -- David Nicholls
When one looks back over human existence however, it is very evident that all culture has developed through an initial resistance against adaptation to the reality in which man finds himself. -- Beatrice M. Hinkle
As a consequence, geneticists described evolution simply as a change in gene frequencies in populations, totally ignoring the fact that evolution consists of the two simultaneous but quite separate phenomena of adaptation and diversification. -- Ernst Mayr
A cockroach can't defeat a dinosaur. But the cockroach is better at one thing, and it has ensured its survival through the ages: Adaptation. One could adapt to the environment and the other one couldn't. -- Georges St-Pierre
Regularity in the hours of rising and retiring, perseverance in exercise, adaptation of dress to the variations of climate, simple and nutritious aliment, and temperance in all things are necessary branches of the regimen of health. -- Lord Chesterfield
My mother came from St. Thomas. I heard that melody and all I did was actually adapt it. I made my adaptation of sort of an island traditional melody. It did become sort of my trademark tune. -- Sonny Rollins
I think, then, that man, after having satisfied his first longing for facts, wanted something fuller - some grouping, some adaptation to his capacity and experience, of the links of this vast chain of events which his sight could not take in. -- Alfred de Vigny
I'm very keen. Adaptations of other people's work, too. I got fascinated by the adaptation process, so I think that'd be a really interesting task. I would happily write original screenplays as well. I think it's become one of my favorite genres. -- Emma Donoghue
The facts of variability, of the struggle for existence, of adaptation to conditions, were notorious enough; but none of us had suspected that the road to the heart of the species problem lay through them, until Darwin and Wallace dispelled the darkness. -- Thomas Huxley
Agricultural practice served Darwin as the material basis for the elaboration of his theory of Evolution, which explained the natural causation of the adaptation we see in the structure of the organic world. That was a great advance in the knowledge of living nature. -- Trofim Lysenko
I adore doing classic adaptations, but I also feel their frustrations and their limitations. -- Andrew Davies
I'm going to do an adaptation of the Italian film, Bread and Tulips. I really like that film. -- Norman Jewison
The issue of doing an adaptation of a book is the theater of the mind, and so you always face that. -- Dana Brunetti
The truth is that I know very few novelists who have been satisfied with the adaptation of their books for the screen. -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
For me, the level at which natural selection causes the phenomenon of adaptation is the level of the replicator - the gene. -- Richard Dawkins
The movie adaptations of stage musicals that I've seen, without exception, in my opinion don't work. A lot of people would disagree with me. -- Stephen Sondheim
In the game of life, less diversity means fewer options for change. Wild or domesticated, panda or pea, adaptation is the requirement for survival. -- Cary Fowler
Oftentimes when you see adaptations of books you like, you're let down. As an author, you assume that they are going to suck. A little bit of hope is dangerous. -- Gayle Forman
As Americans, we have traditionally been the optimists sporting the 'can-do' attitude. But when it comes to addressing climate adaptation and resiliency, we seem to be more 'can't do' than 'can-do.' -- Paul Tonko
Watching an adaptation of your novel can be a violent experience: seeing your old jokes suddenly thrust at you can be alarming. But I started to enjoy 'Money' very quickly, and then I relaxed. -- Martin Amis
Regularity in the hours of rising and retiring, perseverance in exercise, adaptation of dress to the variations of climate, simple and nutritious aliment, and temperance in all things are necessary branches of the regimen of health. -- Lord Chesterfield
I've made seventeen or eighteen films now, only two of which have been original screenplays, all the others have been based on short stories or novels, and I find the long short story ideal for adaptation. -- Satyajit Ray
The true basis of morality is utility; that is, the adaptation of our actions to the promotion of the general welfare and happiness; the endeavour so to rule our lives that we may serve and bless mankind. -- Annie Besant
I've done my share of period stuff. I'm not sure why, but people say I have a period face. The bread and butter of British TV is Jane Austen adaptations and bridges and bonnets and boats and horses. -- Tom Hiddleston
I firmly believe that you can't get a good movie without risking a bad movie. A good adaptation of your book is worth it because it is such a wonderful experience to see your world translated onto the screen. -- Cassandra Clare
The things I have sold to film, I've sold because I was happy to rent out the right to adapt those works. Some things, I haven't sold to film, because I was less interested in having no control over the adaptation. -- Warren Ellis
I increasingly fear that nothing good can come of almost any adaptation, and obviously that's sweeping. There are a couple of adaptations that are perhaps as good or better than the original work. But the vast majority of them are pointless. -- Alan Moore
The Constitution remains brilliant in its overall design and sound with respect to the Bill of Rights and the separation of powers. But there are numerous archaic provisions that inhibit constructive change and adaptation. These constitutional bits affect the daily life of the republic and every citizen in it. -- Larry J. Sabato
Here's how adaptation works - almost everything in the movie is in the book in some form. But it's as though the deck has been completely reshuffled and some of the cards have been assigned different values, some of the fours have been made into jacks, and some of the jacks have been made into twos. -- Walter Kirn
I'm a creature of adaptation. I take advantage of the second and the moment. My comedy breathes; it's not really that predictable. I do have a linear style, but other than that, there's a lot of abstract. I just go off on what I'm thinking. I'm not that topical. I like to talk about me and my experiences. -- Tommy Davidson
Perfect preparation doesnâ??t exist. Excellent adaptation does. -- Lauren Fleshman
Social adaptation has to proceed via the intellect. -- Hans Asperger
Architecture ... the adaptation of form to resist force. -- John Ruskin
Finesse is the best adaptation of means to circumstances. -- Thomas B. Macaulay
Evolution taught us that adaptation is the key to survival. -- Gemma Malley
All failure is failure to adapt, all success is successful adaptation. -- Max McKeown
In fast moving markets, adaptation is significantly more important than optimization. -- Larry Constantine
Life: a constellation of vital phenomenaâ??organization, irritability, movement, growth, reproduction, adaptation. -- Anthony Marra
Individual organisms are best thought of as adaptation-executers rather than as fitness-maximizers. -- John Tooby
What is evolution if not creative adaptation and the progression of our own souls? -- Terry Tempest Williams
There is change by necessity or adaptation, and there is contrived change or novelty. -- Wendell Berry
Every adaptation requires that the screenwriter make difficult choices - and in particular, difficult cuts. -- David Benioff
Archimedes constructing his circle pays with his life for his defective biological adaptation to immediate circumstances. -- Ernst Mach
Not everybody can do the comic book adaptation thing and make it believable. It is challenging. -- Wesley Snipes
Religious belief itself is an adaptation that has evolved because we're hard-wired to form tribalistic religions. -- E. O. Wilson
The great mystery of adaptation is that true fidelity can only be achieved through lavish promiscuity. -- David Hare
Much guilt arises in the life of the believer from practicing the chameleon life of environmental adaptation. -- Beth Moore
People seem to get used to anything, and it is a short step from adaptation to attachment. -- Lionel Shriver
....shellfish are the prime cause of the decline of morals and the adaptation of an extravagant lifestyle. -- Pliny the Elder
My ultimate goal is to drive people back to the books, when I think of an adaptation. -- Lev Grossman
The excellence of every government is its adaptation to the state of those to be governed by it. -- Thomas Jefferson
After I sold my screenplay adaptation of 'Rain Fall' to Sony Pictures, I had no more creative involvement, -- Barry Eisler
It is not stress that kills us. It is effective adaptation to stress that allows us to live. -- George Vaillant
Because of my medical and ideological training, I am accustomed to saying that life is adaptation and symbiosis. -- Tabare Vazquez
Slow adaptation is driven by forces such as evolution. Fast adaptation is driven by forces such as insight. -- Gary A. Klein
After I sold my screenplay adaptation of 'Rain Fall' to Sony Pictures, I had no more creative involvement. -- Barry Eisler
The Westerner is less a person than a continuing adaptation. The West is less a place than a process. -- Wallace Stegner
Dirk Gently has been a long passion (my career started with Douglas Adams and my stage adaptation of Dirk Gently) . -- Arvind Ethan David
Individual societies begin in harmonious adaptation to the environment and, like individuals, quickly get trapped into nonadaptive, artificial, repetitive sequences. -- Timothy Leary
Natural selection is a theory of local adaptation to changing environments. It proposes no perfecting principles, no guarantee of general improvement -- Stephen Jay Gould
Every great religion is, in truth, a concentration of great ideas, capable, as all ideas are, of infinite expansion and adaptation. -- Mary Augusta Ward
The differences you perceive between Humans-between groups of Humans-are the result of isolation and inbreeding, mutation, and adaptation to different Earth environments -- Octavia Butler
In general, my own experience of writing an adaptation of 'Evening' gave me a chance to get into different parts of the book. -- Susan Minot
Life is challenging for everyone. If someone can believe that he's a sovereign in his tiny domain, it's just an adaptation to life. -- George Meyer
At a minimum, in explaining evolutionary pathways through time, the constraints imposed by history rise to equal prominence with the immediate advantages of adaptation. -- Stephen Jay Gould
A good adaptation of your book is worth it because it is such a wonderful experience to see your world translated onto the screen. -- Cassandra Clare
Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. It is a means of combining the intelligence of many to achieve ongoing group adaptation. -- Octavia Butler
I did an adaptation for a movie called 'The Devil in the White City' by Erik Larson for Warner Brothers. I love that book. -- Graham Moore
A nice adaptation of conditions will make almost any hypothesis agree with the phenomena. This will please the imagination but does not advance our knowledge. -- Joseph Black
Our generation must fulfill the most noble of duties by ensuring the survival of future generations through the most basic of survival mechanisms - adaptation. -- Leilani Munter
The nucleus has to take care of the inheritance of the heritable characters, while the surrounding cytoplasm is concerned with accommodation or adaptation to the environment. -- Ernst Haeckel
Repression is an evolutionary adaptation permitting us to function under the burden of our expanded consciousness. For what we are conscious of could drive us mad. -- Camille Paglia
True freedom, which is full joy, is the complete recognition of law and adaptation to it. Bondage comes from ignorance of law or opposition to it. -- John Andreas Widtsoe
My familiarity with the successful use of very long steel ropes for mining purposes naturally suggested their adaptation to the new purpose of deep sea work. -- Alexander Agassiz
Precise adaptation, with each part finely honed to perform a definite function in an optimal way, can only lead to blind alleys, dead ends, and extinction. -- Stephen Jay Gould
The problem with books, now that I've written one, is that the idea of adaptation is so much easier than sitting down to write something new. -- Nick Cave
From the American retelling of Romeo and Juliet in West Side Story to the Japanese adaptation of King Lear in Ran, Shakespeare's cultural influence is virtually limitless. -- Gordon Smith
Within a scantily plotted, novella-style narrative (the movie is an adaptation of a short story by Tom Bissell), single shots become story events that mere mention would spoil. -- Karina Longworth
I think a successful adaptation rises or falls on the work presented. If people need to read the book to understand the play, I didn't complete the job. -- Jeff Britting
What is more malleable is always superior over that which is immovable. This is the principle of controlling things by going along with them, of mastery through adaptation. -- Jaimal Yogis
Some evolutionists will protest that we are caricaturing their view of adaptation. After all, do they not admit genetic drift, allometry, and a variety of reasons for nonadaptive evolution? -- Stephen Jay Gould
Because ideas have to be original only with regard to their adaptation to the problem at hand, I am always extremely interested in how others have used used them.... -- Thomas A. Edison
Prudence supposes the value of the end to be assumed, and refers only to the adaptation of the means. It is the relation of right means for given ends. -- William Whewell
Life is neither static nor unchanging. With no individuality, there can be no change, no adaptation and, in an inherently changing world, any species unable to adapt is also doomed. -- Jean M. Auel
I was lucky to get one good adaptation. Field of Dreams the Musical is lurking in the wings. Hope it will provide my daughters with a ton of money someday. -- W. P. Kinsella
What an odd time to be a fundamentalist about adaptation and natural selection - when each major subdiscipline of evolutionary biology has been discovering other mechanisms as adjuncts to selection's centrality. -- Stephen Jay Gould
Morality comes from religion? There are no Baptist babies or Catholic babies or Muslim babies. Religion is imposed on children by adults and society, and morality is an evolutionary adaptation. Period. -- Kelli Jae Baeli
I think there's really only been one successful video game adaptation, and that was probably 'Tomb Raider.' Whether or not you thought it was a good movie, it was successful financially. -- David S. Goyer
The exercises of practical life are formative activities, a work of adaptation to the environment. Such adaptation to the environment and efficient functioning therein is the very essence of a useful education. -- Maria Montessori
At the Global Crop Diversity Trust, we work to conserve the diversity that will allow the adaptation and evolution of our agricultural crops in the context of climate change and other challenges. -- Cary Fowler
I've commissioned an adaptation of 'The Jungle', by Upton Sinclair, a story of a young immigrant from Lithuania to the meat-packing industry of Chicago in 1904, and the rise of the unions in America. -- David Schwimmer
But that constant adjustment and adaptation to your new environment, all the variables are the same. There's always a promoter, there's always a rider, there's always a shower, and there's always a stage. -- Feist
Culture is the most potent method of adaptation that has emerged in the evolutionary history of the living world. - Theodosius Dobzhanksky...the 'facts' of culture history are interpretations based upon assumed culture process. -- Jerry Sabloff
Since we live in a society that promotes faddism and temporary superficial adaptation of different values, we are easily convinced that changes have occurred in arenas where there has been little or no change. -- bell hooks
Darwinian natural selection only yields adaptation to changing local environments, and better function in an immediate habitat might just as well be achieved by greater simplicity in form and behavior as by ever-increasing complexity. -- Stephen Jay Gould
Any adaptation is a translation, and there is such a thing as an unreadably faithful translation; and I believe a degree of reinterpretation for the new language may be not only inevitable but desirable. -- David Mitchell
It's tricky turning a book into a movie. Sometimes people love the book so much that no adaptation lives up to what they imagined. You can avoid that disappointment by never, ever reading books. -- Craig Ferguson

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