Max Brooks · 342 pages
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“Lies are neither bad nor good. Like a fire they can either keep you warm or burn you to death, depending on how they're used.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“Most people don't believe something can happen until it already has. That's not stupidity or weakness, that's just human nature.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“The only rule that ever made sense to me I learned from a history, not an economics, professor at Wharton. "Fear," he used to say, "fear is the most valuable commodity in the universe." That blew me away. "Turn on the TV," he'd say. "What are you seeing? People selling their products? No. People selling the fear of you having to live without their products." Fuckin' A, was he right. Fear of aging, fear of loneliness, fear of poverty, fear of failure. Fear is the most basic emotion we have. Fear is primal. Fear sells.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“I think that most people would rather face the light of a real enemy than the darkness of their imagined fears.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“The monsters that rose from the dead, they are nothing compared to the ones we carry in our hearts”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“There's a word for that kind of lie. Hope.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“I don't know if great times make great men, but I know they can kill them.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“Imagine what could be accomplished if only the human race would shed its humanity.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“Sometimes you find your path, sometimes it finds you.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“[...]you don’t have to be Sun freakin Tzu to know that real fighting isn’t about killing or even hurting the other guy, it’s about scaring him enough to call it a day.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“When I believe in my ability to do something, there is no such word as no.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“You can't blame anyone else, ... , no one but yourself. You have to make your own choices and live every agonizing day with the consequences of those choices.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“Whatever bro, tell it to the whales”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“They didn't break me. I broke myself.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“To know is always better, no matter what the answer might be.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“This is the only time for high ideals because those ideals are all that we have. We aren't just fighting for our physical survival, but for the survival of our civilization. We don't have the luxury of old-world pillars. We don't have a common heritage, we don't have a millennia of history. All we have are the dreams and promises that bind us together. All we have...is what we want to be.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“They say great times make great men. I don't buy it. I saw a lot of weakness, a lot of filth. People who should have risen to the challenge and either couldn't or wouldn't. Greed, fear, stupidity and hate. I saw it before the war, I see it today. [...] I don't know if great times make great men, but I know they can kill them.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“If your Soviet neighbor is trying to set fire to your house, you can't be worrying about the Arab down the block. If suddenly it's the Arab in your backyard , you can't be worrying about the People's Republic of China and if one day the ChiComs show up at your front door with an eviction notice in one hand and a Molotov cocktail in the other, then the last thing you're going do is look over his shoulder for a walking corpse.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“Americans worship technology. It's an inherent trait in the national zeitgeist.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“We relinquished our freedom that day, and we were more than happy to see it go. From that moment on we lived in true freedom, the freedom to point to someone else and say “They told me to do it! It’s their fault, not mine.” The freedom, God help us, to say “I was only following orders.”-World War Z”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“Fear is the most basic emotion we have. Fear is primal. Fear sells.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“There comes a point when you have to realize that the sum of all your blood, sweat, and tears will ultimately amount to zero.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“Looking back, I still can't believe how unprofessional the news media was. So much spin, so few hard facts. All those digestible sound bites from an army of 'experts' all contradicting one another, all trying to seem more 'shocking' and 'in-depth' than the last one. It was all so confusing, nobody seemed to know what to do.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“. . . show the other side, the one that gets people out of bed the next morning, makes them scratch and scrape and fight for their lives because someone is telling them that they're going to be okay.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“There comes a point where emotions must give way to objective facts.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“America is especially sensitive to war weariness, and nothing brings backlash like the perception of defeat. I say “perception” because America is a very all-or-nothing society… We like to know, and for everyone else to know, that our victory wasn’t uncontested, it was positively devastating.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“Can you ever "solve" poverty? Can you ever "solve" crime? Can you ever "solve" disease, unemployment, war, or any other societal herpes? Hell no.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“Can you ever "solve" disease, unemployment, war, or any other societal herpes? Hell no. All you can hope for is to make them manageable enough to allow people to get on with their lives. That's not cynicism, that's maturity.”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“The official report was a collection of cold, hard data, an objective "after-action report" that would allow future generations to study the events of that apocalyptic decade without being influenced by the "human factor." But isn't the human factor what connects us so deeply to our past? Will future generations care as much for chronologies and casualty statistics as they would for the personal accounts of individuals not so different from themeslves? By excluding the human factor, aren't we risking the kind of personal detachment from a history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it?”
― Max Brooks, quote from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
Max Brooks
Born place: in New York City, The United States
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“We can't pray that God make our lives free of problems; this won't happen, and it is probably just as well. We can't ask Him to make us and those we love immune to diseases, because He can't do that. We can't ask Him to weave a magic spell around us so that bad things will only happen to other people, and never to us.
People who pray for miracles usually don't get miracles, any more than children who pray for bicycles, good grades, or good boyfriends get them as a result of praying. But people who pray for courage, for strength to bear the unbearable, for the grace to remember what they have left instead of they have lost, very often find their prayer answered.”
― Harold S. Kushner, quote from When Bad Things Happen to Good People
“didn’t plan this,” Jack said. “But since it’s you and me—tell me about Brie.” “Tell you what, Jack?” “When she was leaving… It looked like there was something….” “Spit it out.” “You and Brie?” “What?” Jack took a breath, not happily. “Are you with my sister?” Mike had a swallow of his whiskey. “I’m taking a day off tomorrow—taking her down the Pacific Coast Highway through Mendocino to look for whales, see the galleries, maybe have a little lunch.” “Why?” “She said she’d like to do that while she’s here.” “All right, but you know what I’m getting at—” “I think you’d better tell me, so I don’t misunderstand.” “I’d like to know what your intentions are toward my sister.” “You really think you have the right to do that? To ask that question?” Mike asked him. “Just tell me what was going on between the two of you while I was gone.” “Jack, you’d better loosen your grip a little. Brie’s a grown woman. From where I stand, we’re good friends. If you want to know how she sees it, I think she’s the one you have to ask. But I don’t recommend it—she might be offended. Despite everything, she tends to think of herself as a grown-up.” “It’s no secret to you—she’s had a real bad year.” “It’s no secret,” Mike agreed. “You’re making this really tough, man…” “No, I think you are. You spent some time with her tonight. Did it look to you like anything is wrong? Like she’s upset or anything? Because I think everything is fine and you worry too much.” “I worry, yeah. I worry that maybe she’ll look to you for some comfort. For something to help her get through. And that you’ll take advantage of that.” “And…?” Mike prompted, lifting his glass but not drinking. “And maybe work a little of your Latin magic on her and walk away.” Jack drank his whiskey. “I don’t want you to do that to her.” Mike put down his glass on the bar without emptying it. “I would never hurt Brie. And it has nothing to do with whose sister she is. Good night, Jack.”
― Robyn Carr, quote from Whispering Rock
“For the moment she was caught between the two worlds, neither one thing nor another. She would be sorry to let the former depart and yet she was longing for the latter to arrive: a new name and with it a new world and with it a new life.”
― Amanda Grange, quote from Mr. Darcy, Vampyre
“A naked blade is reckoned to be less obscene than a naked woman.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“He stroked Sido's cheek and bent down to kiss her, whispering what his heart had always known, what he had never said before to anyone. 'I love you, I always will.”
― Sally Gardner, quote from The Red Necklace
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