Max Barry famous quotes

03-28-2025

She had been in situations like this, where people said, Convince me, and in none of those had they actually wanted to be convinced. She could lay down a perfect argument and they just invented new bullshit on the spot to justify why the answer was still no. When people said, Convince me, she knew it didnâ€™t mean they had an open mind. It meant they had power and wanted to enjoy it a minute.
-- Max Barry

#Mean #Perfect #Bullshit
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

#Real #Thinking #People
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.
-- Max Barry

#Book #Thinking #Want
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.
-- Max Barry

#Book #Thinking #Guy
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

#Sex #Writing #Character
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.
-- Max Barry

#Beautiful #Football #Country
That's the thing you learn about values: they're what people make up to justify what they did.
-- Max Barry

#People #Justify #Values
When it's done with being graceful and poetic, language is meant to communicate, after all.
-- Max Barry

#Done #Language #Poetic
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.
-- Max Barry

#Hands #Nuts #Mind
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?
-- Max Barry

#People #Hey #Saws
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.
-- Max Barry

#Simple #People #Use
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.
-- Max Barry

#Nike #Kids #People
My own fault. The equipment had safeties but your primary piece of protective equipment was your brain. There was a presumption that anyone entering this room was intelligent enough to keep away from hot things, sharp things, and things carrying large stores of momentum.
-- Max Barry

#Intelligent #Safety #Brain
I will not be what I was made, but what I make.
-- Max Barry

#Made
There's no requirement that jobs be meaningful. If there was, half the country would be unemployed.
-- Max Barry

#Meaningful #Country #Jobs
Elizabeth is smart, ruthless, and emotionally damaged ... [i]f Elizabeth's brain was a person, it would have scars, tattoos, and be missing one eye.
-- Max Barry

#Tattoo #Smart #Eye
Monday morning and there's one less donut than there should be. Keen observers note the reduced mass straightaway but stay silent, because saying, 'Hey, is that only six donuts?' would betray their donut experience. It's not great for your career to be known as the person who can spot the difference between six and seven donuts at a glance.
-- Max Barry

#Monday #Morning #Careers
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.
-- Max Barry

#Love You #Two #Bullshit
every story written is marks upon a page The same marks, repeated, only differently arranged
-- Max Barry

#Stories #Pages #Mark
I usually like to interact with people who don't speak until it's necessary but I was intimidated by Carl's physique. I didn't feel inferior so much as incompatible. Carl existed on a plane where success was measured by physical feats. He had a brain because his body needed it, rather than the opposite. I didn't understand such people. I didn't know what they wanted, or might do.
-- Max Barry

#Opposites #People #Brain
People resist a census, but give them a profile page and they'll spend all day telling you who they are.
-- Max Barry

#People #Giving #Pages
What it comes down to, you see, is that a naked body is just a naked body. But the possibility of a naked body is something special.
-- Max Barry

#Special #Body #Naked
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

#Desire #Want #Fundamentals
I don't play the lottery. I don't care what my horoscope says. I think most things about the world could be improved if people thought more about what they're doing. When someone gets upset with their computer, I tend to side with the computer. I think art is overrated, and bridges are underrated. In fact, I don't understand why bridges aren't art. It seems to me they're penalized for having a use. If I make a bridge that ends in midair, that's a sculpture. But put it between two landmasses and let it ferry two hundred thousand cars per day and it's infrastructure. That makes no sense.
-- Max Barry

#Art #Thinking #Bridges
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.
-- Max Barry

#Government #Long #Action

You may also like:

Amanda Seyfried
Actress
Amber Heard
Actress
Austin Grossman
Writer
Brittany Snow
Film actress
Charles Stross
Writer
Christopher Meloni
Actor
Craig Clevenger
Author
Henry Hazlitt
Journalist
Joe R. Lansdale
Author
Kate Nash
Singer-songwriter
Lauren Beukes
Novelist
Lev Grossman
Novelist
Max Irons
Film actor
Paul Neilan
Novelist
Peter Guber
Film Producer
Rachel Dratch
Actress
Shailene Woodley
Actress
Shiloh Fernandez
Actor
Stuart Neville
Author
Will Christopher Baer
Author