Max Barry
51 quotes
Biography
Max Barry is an Australian author and software developer. He also maintains a blog on various topics, including politics.
"People resist a census, but give them a profile page and they'll spend all day telling you who they are."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"When it's done with being graceful and poetic, language is meant to communicate, after all."
"I feel comfortably qualified to talk about anything, but that's a personal problem and I'm dealing with it."
"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."
"To get a good job in marketing, you need to market yourself."
"I note that as in all large corporations that loudly subscribe to equal opportunity and employment based solely on skill, the receptionist is young, female and gorgeous."
"It’s much easier to be incomprehensible than intelligent, and most people can’t spot the difference."
"I’m very interested in what sort of car she’s driving because I think it will reveal some insight into her personality. After all, I don’t have a car at all, and that reveals plenty about me."
"There’s nothing more fascinating than a girl who won’t have sex with you."
"“Reversing gender stereotypes doesn’t eliminate them,” 6 says, tossing the bacon. “You just create a whole new set of prejudices.”"
"I learned pretty early in my career as an agent to be friendly to utter jerks; it’s an essential skill."
"“Your problem is that reality isn’t good enough for you.” she says levelly. “You need a fantasy.”"
"The whole morning feels very strange until I realize that for the first time in a long while, 6 and I don’t have anything to do. We have the whole weekend to kill: no deadlines, no last-minute struggles, no panic. It almost feels illegal."
"“It’s all responsibility and no control,” 6 says. “The classic path to failure.”"
"John here," the other John said, "pioneered the concept of marketing by refusing to sell any products. It drives the market insane."
"What’s not fair is that our society rewards selfishness. That’s not fair."
"The T-shirt was black with a big NRA logo on the chest: an AK-47 crossed with a burly arm. Underneath, it said: FREEDOM IS AN ASSAULT RIFLE. That was kind of catchy, Billy thought. The NRA was getting hip."
"It was turning into a sly, anti–free market statement, and irony irritated him. There was no place for irony in marketing: it made people want to look for deeper meaning. There was no place in marketing for that, either."
"The easier your job, the more you got paid. John had suspected this for many years, but here was the proof: pulling down five hundred bucks an hour to sit in the afternoon sun on top of an L.A. office tower. He was wearing a suit and shades, reclining on a deck chair while a light breeze blew in from the bay. John thought he might have found the perfect job."
"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?"