Max Brooks quotes

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

#Lying #Fire #Deceit

My coping mechanism with my dyslexia is to use wit and humor.
-- Max Brooks

#Use #Coping #Dyslexia

That's the thing about zombies. They don't adapt and they don't think. Literally, you could have a zombie on one side of a chain link fence and you could be on the other side and they could be trying to get to you and six feet down could be an open door and they will not go through that door in the fence. That's why they're so scary.
-- Max Brooks

#Thinking #Feet #Doors

Hooking on scuba gear and blindly diving into zombie-infested water is a wonderful way to mix the two childhood terrors of being eaten and drowning.
-- Max Brooks

#Two #Water #Childhood

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

#Choices #Agonizing #Blame

Often, a school is your best bet-perhaps not for education but certainly for protection from an undead attack.
-- Max Brooks

#School #Zombie #Protection

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

#Believe #People #Stupidity

[...]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

#Hurt #Fear #Real

There comes a point where emotions must give way to objective facts.
-- Max Brooks

#Giving #Way #Facts

We live in such a service-based, globalised economy where very few people actually make anything and the people who do make stuff... it's all part of a massive global supply chain. So what if all those chains were suddenly cut, how would you make something? How would you keep people alive? And that was something I wanted to explore.
-- Max Brooks

#Cutting #People #What If

Remember; no matter how desperate the situation seems, time spent thinking clearly is never time wasted.
-- Max Brooks

#Thinking #Matter #Remember

You can't blame anyone else... You have to make your own choices and live every agonizing day with the consequences of those choices. He knew this. That's why he deserted us like we deserted those civilians. He saw the road ahead, a steep, treacherous mountain road. We'd all have to hike that road, each of us dragging the boulder of what we'd done behind us. He couldn't do it. He couldn't shoulder the weight." - Philip Adler
-- Max Brooks

#Choices #Mountain #Boulders

Use your head; cut off theirs.
-- Max Brooks

#Halloween #Cutting #Zombie

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

#War #America #Perception

But no matter what happens to the surviving humans, there will always be the walking dead.
-- Max Brooks

#Walking Dead #Matter #Humans

If you believe you can accomplish everything by "cramming" at the eleventh hour, by all means, don't lift a finger now. But you may think twice about beginning to build your ark once it has already started raining
-- Max Brooks

#Rain #Believe #Procrastination

But there were alternative media outlets. Oh sure, and you know who listens to them? Pansy, overeducated know-it-alls, and you know who listens to them? Nobody! Who's going to care about some PBS-NPR fringe minority that's out of touch with the mainstream? The more those elitist eggheads shouted "The Dead Are Walking," the more most real Americans tuned them out.
-- Max Brooks

#Real #Media #Npr

Zombies are apocalyptic in nature. They belong to a class of monster that doesn't just hunt humans, but seeks to obliterate that entire human race.
-- Max Brooks

#Race #Class #Zombie

Zombie books were going to be my passion projects, but certainly not pay the bills. I thought I was going to have to get a real job on a sitcom or something, and have my zombie books to remind myself I was still a writer at heart. I never thought I could actually pay my bills and write what I wanted.
-- Max Brooks

#Jobs #Real #Book

With so much protection, wouldn't one be able to wander among the undead ranks, taunting them at will with no danger of repercussion?
-- Max Brooks

#Zombie #Able #Protection

Of all the weapons discussed in this book, nothing is more important than your primary firearm. Keep it cleaned, keep it oiled, keep it loaded, keep it close. With a cool head, steady hand, and plenty of ammunition, one human is more than a match for an army of zombies.
-- Max Brooks

#Book #Army #Hands

Before I'm a zombie nerd, before I'm a science-fiction nerd, I am a history nerd.
-- Max Brooks

#Nerd #Zombie #Fiction

The bottom line is I'm a slow zombie guy - I'm always a slow zombie guy but I also know I'm in the minority.
-- Max Brooks

#Guy #Zombie #Lines

A true crisis. Class 3 outbreaks, more than any other, demonstrate the clear threat posed by the living dead. Zombies will number in the thousands, encompassing an area of several hundred miles.
-- Max Brooks

#Class #Numbers #Zombie

The dead walk among us. Zombies, ghouls-no matter what their label-these somnambulists are the greatest threat to humanity, other than humanity itself.
-- Max Brooks

#Ghouls #Humanity #Zombie

I wrote 'The Zombie Survival Guide' because I wanted to read it, and nobody else was writing it. All I've been doing with everything I've written is answering questions that I had.
-- Max Brooks

#Writing #Survival #Zombie

I remember I used to come up to my teacher crying because I couldn't read. She would say: 'You can do this. You just don't want to do this.
-- Max Brooks

#Teacher #Want #Remember

I think Americans are at our best when we recover from a crisis. We've suffered some blows that other countries would have never recovered from.
-- Max Brooks

#Country #Thinking #Blow

Zombies don't run. They don't dance. They don't say, "More brains." There is no Thriller Night. Those are stereotypes that are perpetrated by Hollywood, which I think is very irresponsible because it can get you killed.
-- Max Brooks

#Running #Night #Thinking

We've been at peace about as long as e were at war.
-- Max Brooks

#War #Long

When I was 16, the first book I ever actually purchased with my own money, in fact, and had read on my own time was 'Hunt for Red October' by Tom Clancy.
-- Max Brooks

#Book #Red #Firsts

When I read Frank Miller's 'The Dark Knight Returns', I think it's a wonderful record of the Reagan era. I think it's amazing. This is the time I lived in.
-- Max Brooks

#Dark #Thinking #Knights

If I thought there was any hope of turning 'World War Z' into a movie, I wouldn't have written it as a giant, epic, global story, because that requires a giant, epic, global budget.
-- Max Brooks

#War #Epic #Stories

If I knew anything about what people wanted and was popular, I'd still be writing for 'Saturday Night Live'. I can only write what I want, and hopefully people will like it.
-- Max Brooks

#Writing #Night #People

I think the general anxiety of the 1960s - '70s spawned our interest in the living dead. When people worry about the end of their world, they need a safe vessel for all their fears. Zombies provide that vessel because they're 'safe.
-- Max Brooks

#Thinking #Worry #People

I think the fascination with zombies is that they don't obey the rules of monsters. The first rule of monsters is that you have to go find them. You have to make a conscious choice to go to the swamp or the desert or the abandoned summer camp.
-- Max Brooks

#Summer #Thinking #Choices

I think 'G.I. Joe' is a perfect example of how I'm the world's worst businessman. If I were smart, I'd be writing 'World War Z Part 12', but I have to go where the muse leads, and I've always been a huge 'G.I. Joe' fan. I always wanted to know more about these characters, these little plastic figures I played with as a kid.
-- Max Brooks

#War #Smart #Character

Any survival guide will tell you, don't buy a pair of combat boots before any disaster. They'll tear your feet up. Or water - don't bring water with you because it'll tire you out and you'll lose too much fluid. Bring a water pump.
-- Max Brooks

#Feet #Water #Survival

You can watch 'Dawn of the Dead' and still sleep at night. Try that with 'The Day After'.
-- Max Brooks

#Sleep #Night #Trying

You assume things, like whatever country has more firepower wins the wars, and that's actually not true at all.
-- Max Brooks

#Country #War #Winning

When I started writing, there was nothing about zombies. It was all teen movies, which to me are scarier than zombies, but that's another story.
-- Max Brooks

#Writing #Zombie #Stories

I wanted to serve. It was Desert Storm. I thought, 'I was a rich kid, and America's been good to me.
-- Max Brooks

#Kids #America #Storm

Zombies have no memories of their former life. You wont see the undead trying to wash windows or do your taxes. All they know how to do is swarm and feed.
-- Max Brooks

#Memories #Zombie #Trying

Generation Z, they cleaned up their own mess.
-- Max Brooks

#Generations #Mess

The highest distinction is service to others.
-- Max Brooks

#Service To Others #Distinction

The monsters that rose from the dead, they are nothing compared to the ones we carry in our hearts
-- Max Brooks

#Heart #Rose #Monsters

1. Organize before they rise! 2. They feel no fear, why should you? 3. Use your head: cut off theirs. 4. Blades don't need reloading. 5. Ideal protection = tight clothes, short hair. 6. Get up the staircase, then destroy it. 7. Get out of the car, get onto the bike. 8. Keep moving, keep low, keep quiet, keep alert! 9. No place is safe, only safer. 10. The zombie may be gone, but the threat lives on.
-- Max Brooks

#Moving #Cutting #Hair

. . . 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

#Morning #Fighting #People

There's a word for that kind of lie. Hope.
-- Max Brooks

#Lying #Kind

Zombies will try to scale any surface no matter how unfeasable or even impossible. In all but the easiest situations, these attempts have met with failure. Even in the case of ladders, when simple hand-over-hand coordination is required, only one in four zombies will succeed.
-- Max Brooks

#Simple #Hands #Zombie

Imagine what could be accomplished if only the human race would shed its humanity.
-- Max Brooks

#Race #Humanity #Imagine

Americans worship technology. It's an inherent trait in the national zeitgeist.
-- Max Brooks

#Technology #Worship #Zeitgeist

I don't know if great times make great men, but I know they can kill them.
-- Max Brooks

#Men #Great Men

I think that most people would rather face the light of a real enemy than the darkness of their imagined fears.
-- Max Brooks

#Fear #Real #Thinking

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

#Believe #Army #Media

When I believe in my ability to do something, there is no such word as no.
-- Max Brooks

#Believe #I Believe #Ability

Gu was a worrier, a neurotic curmudgeon. If he had a headache, it was a brain tumor; if it looked like rain, this year's harvest was ruined. This was his way of controlling the situation, his lifelong strategy for always coming out ahead. Now, when reality looked more dire than any of his fatalisitic predictions, he had no choice but to turn tail and charge in the opposite direction.
-- Max Brooks

#Rain #Reality #Years

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

#Block #Doors #Hands

Organize before they rise!
-- Max Brooks

#Organize

During the Qin Dynasty, all books not relating to practical concerns such as agriculture or construction were ordered burned by the emperor to guard against "dangerous thought." Whether accounts of zombie attacks perished in the flames will never be known. This obscure section of a medical manuscript, preserved in the wall of an executed Chinese scholar, might be proof of such attacks.
-- Max Brooks

#Wall #Book #Flames

The dead walk among us.
-- Max Brooks

#Zombie #Walks

Whatever bro, tell it to the whales
-- Max Brooks

#Whales #Bros

They were viewed very much like castles, I suppose: as crumbling, obsolete relics, with no real modern function other than as tourist attractions. But when the skies darkened and the nation called, both reawoke to the meaning of their existence. One shielded our bodies, the other, our souls.
-- Max Brooks

#Real #Sky #Soul

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

#War #Order #World

...because I'm sure that as soon as things really get back to "normal," once our kids or grandkids grow up in a peaceful and comfortable world, they'll probably go right back to being as selfish and narrow-minded and generally shitty to one another as we were.
-- Max Brooks

#Growing Up #Selfish #Kids

Fear is the most basic emotion we have. Fear is primal. Fear sells.
-- Max Brooks

#Emotion

Sometimes you find your path, sometimes it finds you.
-- Max Brooks

#Path #Sometimes

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

#War #Hate #Men

To know is always better, no matter what the answer might be.
-- Max Brooks

#Matter #Answers #Might

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

#Zero #Blood #Sweat

They didn't break me. I broke myself.
-- Max Brooks

#Broke #Break

Survival is the key word to remember—not victory, not conquest, just survival.
-- Max Brooks

#Keys #Survival #Victory

Fear is the most valuable commodity in the universe...Turn on the TV...What are you seeing? People selling their products? No. People selling the fear of you having to live without their products.
-- Max Brooks

#People #Tvs #Commodity

After all we'd been through, we still couldn't take our heads from out of our ***** or our hands from around each other's throats.
-- Max Brooks

#Hands #Ass #Throat

Fear is the most valuable commodity in the universe.
-- Max Brooks

#Commodity #Valuable #Universe

Since 2001, people have been scared. There's been some really scary stuff that's been happening - 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, anthrax letters, D.C. sniper, global warming, global financial meltdown, bird flu, swine flu, SARS. I think people really feel like the system's breaking down.
-- Max Brooks

#Thinking #Iraq #People

I'm not a horror fan. I'm an anti-horror fan. I think horror fans feel deep down in the pit of their souls, they feel safe, and therefore bored. And therefore they want to be scared.
-- Max Brooks

#Thinking #Bored #Soul

Secrecy is a vacuum and nothing fills a vacuum like paranoid speculation.
-- Max Brooks

#Vacuums #Secrecy #Paranoid

Looking for love on the internet is like Janet Leigh asking Norman Bates if he likes her body.
-- Max Brooks

#Body #Likes #Looking For Love

Zombies let us explore notions of the apocalypse - no water, food, medical care, the government imploding - while letting us sleep at night.
-- Max Brooks

#Sleep #Night #Government

I actually wrote my first zombie book way before I got the job on 'Saturday Night Live.
-- Max Brooks

#Jobs #Book #Night

I don't mind my work being a record of the time it was written in.
-- Max Brooks

#Mind #Records

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

#War #Disease #Poverty