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Max Barry
107 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 (born 1973) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: October 16, 2005 weblog post
“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 (born 1973) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: October 8, 2005 weblog post
“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 (born 1973) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: August 24, 2005 weblog post
“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 (born 1973) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: August 8, 2005 weblog post
“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 (born 1973) first seen 1038 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Great Writing interviewhttp://www.greatwriting.co.uk/content/view/1038/
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“mktg case study #2: mktg cola NEVER, NEVER DISCUSS TASTE. TASTE IS 90 PERCENT PSYCHOLOGICAL AND IT DOESN’T SELL COLA; IT’S ROUGHLY A TENTH AS IMPORTANT AS IMAGE. THERE HAVE BEEN STUDIES.”
“It’s much easier to be incomprehensible than intelligent, and most people can’t spot the difference.”
“mktg case study #3: mktg shampoo PICK A RANDOM CHEMICAL IN YOUR PRODUCT AND HEAVILY PROMOTE ITS PRESENCE. WHEN YOUR CUSTOMERS SEE “NOW WITH BENZOETHYLHYDRATES!” THEY WILL ASSUME THAT THIS IS A GOOD THING.”
“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.”
“White coke?” “It’s a trial product.” “Wow, sounds cool. What does it taste like?” “Coke,” 6 says. “Well, yeah,” I say, “but how is it different to, say, Classic Coke?” “It’s in a different can,” 6 says. I wait, but 6 just looks at me. “What, that’s it?” “No,” she says. “It will also cost twice as much.” She pours herself a Pepsi. “We’re after a more upmarket niche.” “You really expect people to pay double for a white can?” I ask, astounded. “When it tastes exactly the same?” 6 aims a chiseled frown at me. “I didn’t say it tastes exactly the same. I said it is exactly the same.”
“6 says, “Tina’s doing an arts degree.” “Oh?” I say, as if the eyebrow ring, blond hair with a streak of black and oppressive eye makeup hadn’t tipped me off. “Oh, let me guess,” Tina says. “He’s a marketer.” “Hi,” I say. …“I hope they pay you well for strangling the youth of this country with cultural conformity.”
“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.”
“mktg case study #6: mktg cigarettes FOR A PRODUCT THAT KILLS ITS CUSTOMERS, THIS IS PRETTY EASY. FOR ONE THING, YOU ONLY NEED TO CONVINCE PEOPLE TO START BUYING. BUT THE BEST PART IS THAT YOU GET TO DEFEND THE ACT OF SELLING A PRODUCT YOUR CUSTOMERS CAN’T STOP BUYING BY CLAIMING THEY HAVE FREEDOM OF CHOICE. BEFORE EACH MARKETING CAMPAIGN, PRACTICE THE LINE: “IT IS NOT THE POLICY OF OUR COMPANY TO DICTATE THE LIFESTYLE OF OUR CUSTOMERS.”
“mktg case study #8: mktg groceries [2] USE LARGE SPECIAL! TAGS ON GOODS WITHOUT REDUCING THEIR PRICE. PRACTICE THE LINE: “OUR COMPANY FEELS THAT THE WORD SPECIAL IN NO WAY IMPLIES A CONNECTION WITH PRICE.”
“Look, how about this: just once, don’t assume every person you meet has a personal vendetta against you.” 6 frowns at her drink. “That’s not a sound strategy.”
“mktg case study #9: mktg lies OCCASIONALLY, JUST OF COURSE, YOUR COMPANY WILL BE CAUGHT IN A LIE. THIS IS NOT GOOD. IF POSSIBLE, IMMEDIATELY FIRE SOMEONE EXPENDABLE AND PUBLICLY APOLOGIZE. IF NOT, YOU MUST STICK TO THE LIE. PERCEPTION IS REALITY.”
“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.”
“mktg case study #13: mktg magazines GIVE AWAY FREE CRAP (PREFERABLY ADVERTISER-SUPPLIED FREE CRAP). DOESN’T MATTER HOW WORTHLESS OR USELESS IT IS: SALES WILL RISE. STRANGE BUT TRUE.”
“It’s all responsibility and no control,” 6 says. “The classic path to failure.”
“You.” He stares at me for a second, then shakes his head. “You told me the truth.” I don’t know what to say. “Yeah.” “Scat,” he says, a pained expression on his face, “haven’t you learned anything?”
“John here," the other John said, "pioneered the concept of marketing by refusing to sell any products. It drives the market insane.”
“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." "The ghettos have no fashion sense anymore," the other John said. "I swear, they'll wear anything.”
“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.”
“The compound was like a mutant Boy Scout camp: all green tents and vehicles and barrels, smack in the middle of nowhere. He saw a troop of soldiers drilling in a field. They reminded him of high school football players with guns. Then a tank rolled past. “Shit! What’s that?” “That is an Abrams M1A battle tank, sir!” Billy looked around with new respect. Now he understood why the NRA membership fees were so high.”
“She was surprised by Dallas’s ugliness. Even with the sun rising behind it, the city looked as if it had been built to withstand bombardment. She’d never seen so much concrete in one place. “What do you think?” Rendell said in the cab. “Nice, huh?” “Where are the trees?” “There are some parks.” He craned his neck. “I think you can see one…” A heavy truck roared alongside them. The cab darkened like it was descending into the earth. Violet put her fingers in her ears. “Past that traffic accident.”
“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?”
“We’ll refer the incident to the Government, and they will—” “The Government? The enemy kicks you in the balls and you want to fill out a complaint form? You think the Government’s even on our side?”
“John said, "You know what makes a successful executive?”
“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.”
“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.”
“Tough day?” General Li said. John sighed. “Just a couple of Liaisons making trouble. Things were much simpler when I didn’t have to listen to other people, Li. Democracy is a pain in the ass.” Li sat. “In the military, we have always had a healthy disrespect for democracy.” “I can see why,” John said. “All right. Now let’s talk about tanks.”
“Hack was asleep when the phone rang. It was amazing how much more sleep he got now that he was unemployed. He was starting to feel bad for all the people who had to drag themselves into their drone factories by nine. They didn’t know what they are missing.”
“It was amazing, he thought, how everyone bitched about corporations but no one was willing to risk pissing them off. Hack was disappointed at the level of motivation among this society’s counterculture.”
“Elizabeth is smart, ruthless, and emotionally damaged; that is, she is a sales representative.”
“On level 14, Elizabeth is falling in love. This is what makes her such a good sales rep, and an emotional basket case: she falls in love with her customers. It is hard to convey just how wretchedly, boot-lickingly draining it is to be a salesperson. Sales is a business of relationships, and you must cultivate customers with tenderness and love, like cabbages in winter, even if the customer is an egomaniacal asshole you want to hit with a shovel. There is something wrong with the kind of person who becomes a sales rep, or if not, there is something wrong after six months.”
“Like every other department in Zephyr, Training Sales has an open floor plan, which means everyone works in a sprawling cubicle farm except the manager, who has an office with a glass internal wall, across which blinds are permanently drawn. Open-plan seating, it has been explained in company-wide memos, increases teamwork, and boosts productivity. Except in managers, that is, whose productivity tends to be boosted by—and the memos don’t say this, but the conclusion is inescapable—corner offices with excellent views.”
“How she became manager remains a mystery. But there are only two possibilities. One is that Senior Management mistook her tirades for drive and a commitment to excellence. The other is that they knew Sydney was a paranoid psychopath, and that’s exactly the kind of person they want in management.”
“He is looking for something called The Omega Management System, which is the latest management fad in a tradition stretching back through Six Sigma and Total Quality Management to the practice of bleeding sick patients and investing in tulips.”