Max Barry quotes

Apparently we're now in a state where most ads are full of people looking at us in a way that would heat us up down to our toes if it happened in real life, and we don't think anything of it. (Max Barry)
Hey, I saw this old British movie, all the people spoke so different, you could hardly understand them. But everyone here speaks American as good as you and me. What's with that? View quote
Max Barry
When someone thinks, "I liked his last book, I'll hope this new one is good” and shells out their hard-earned, I fervently want that person to be thrilled. View quote
Max Barry
When it's done with being graceful and poetic, language is meant to communicate, after all. View quote
Max Barry
Some people would break the rules to get things done and some wouldn't; it was simple as that. John didn't have much use for the latter. View quote
Max Barry
I think this is the first time I've altered a book based on what you guys told me. So it's an occasion! Soon I'll be putting up polls to choose between plots, and then it's a short stop to accepting anonymous contributions and stapling them together while I sip margaritas on the deck of a Pacific cruise ship. View quote
Max Barry
Look, I understand that for a lot of people, the US is superior to their country of residence in myriad ways, but I'm Australian. We have it all: the weather, the beautiful cities, the brand of football that involves neither padding yourself up like Santa Claus nor standing in a line in front of goal and covering your testicles. View quote
Max Barry
Corporations! It's like there are these gigantic monsters living among us, and we don't mind that they're monsters because when we look at them they smile and hand us cheeseburgers. That's nuts. View quote
Max Barry
By this action, the Government has proved that so long as it exists, none of us are truly free. Government and freedom are mutually exclusive. So if we value freedom, there's only one conclusion. It's time to get rid of this leftover relic we call Government. View quote
Max Barry
There's no requirement that jobs be meaningful. If there was, half the country would be unemployed. View quote
Max Barry
Someone from the Internet Writing Workshop sent me a link to the Gender Genie, where you paste in a section of text and it uses an algorithm to detect whether the author is male or female. Or, if you're an author, you can tell whether you're really nailing your opposite-sex characters. I mean, nailing their dialog. (Max Barry)
What's not fair is that our society rewards selfishness. That's not fair. View quote
Max Barry
Senior Management may have been incompetent; it may have been corrupt; it was certainly full of assholes-but they were their incompetent, corrupt assholes. View quote
Max Barry
The atmosphere of desperate, ignorant terror essential to healthy rumors seeps away, replaced by a silent, wary paranoia. People bunker down, jealously keeping what they know, which is nothing, to themselves. View quote
Max Barry
Ninety-five percent of all jobs suck. That's why people get paid to do them. View quote
Max Barry
Someone tried to tell me the other day that the only habitable place in America is California. But I just don't understand how you could spend your life restricted to summer outfits. View quote
Max Barry
You can say this for Senior Management: it knows how to articulate a goal. The strategy may be fuzzy, the execution nonexistent, but Senior Management knows what it wants. View quote
Max Barry
People resist a census, but give them a profile page and they'll spend all day telling you who they are. View quote
Max Barry
every story written is marks upon a page The same marks, repeated, only differently arranged. View quote
Max Barry
I read once that you need two things to be happy: any two of health, money, and love. You can cover the absense of one with the other two... But now I realized this was unmitigated bullshit, because health and money did not compare with love at all. View quote
Max Barry
The most fundamental thing about a person is desire. It defines them. Tell me what a person wants, truly wants, and I'll tell you who they are, and how to persuade them. (Max Barry)
John here," the other John said, "pioneered the concept of marketing by refusing to sell any products. It drives the market insane. View quote
Max Barry
I feel comfortably qualified to talk about anything, but that's a personal problem and I'm dealing with it. View quote
Max Barry
I remember when you could always rely on those little street kids to pop a few people for the latest Nikes," Vice-President John said. "Now people get mugged for Reeboks, for Adidas - for generics, for Christ's sake. View quote
Max Barry
Marketing (or mktg, which is what you write when you're taking lecture notes at two hundred words per minute) is the biggest industry in the world, and it's invisible. It's the planet's largest religion, but the billions who worship it don't know it. It's vast, insidious and completely corrupt. Marketing is like LA. It's like a gorgeous, brainless model in LA. A gorgeous, brainless model on cocaine having sex drinking Perrier in LA. That's the best way I know how to describe it. View quote
Max Barry