Link Copied!
Max Barry Quotes (1973-)
Writer, King, Novelist
About Max Barry
Max Barry (born 18 March 1973) is an Australian novelist, short-story writer and essayist. His books include Syrup, Jennifer Government, and Company.
Best Max Barry Quotes
Shortest
Earliest
Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful Max Barry quotes.
“There’s nothing more fascinating than a girl who won’t have sex with you.”
“What’s not fair is that our society rewards selfishness. That’s not fair.”
“Ninety-five percent of all jobs suck, Jones. That’s why people get paid to do them.”
““It’s all responsibility and no control,” 6 says. “The classic path to failure.””
“When it's done with being graceful and poetic, language is meant to communicate, after all.”
“Elizabeth is smart, ruthless, and emotionally damaged; that is, she is a sales representative.”
“It’s much easier to be incomprehensible than intelligent, and most people can’t spot the difference.”
“I feel comfortably qualified to talk about anything, but that's a personal problem and I'm dealing with it.”
“There’s no requirement that jobs be meaningful, Jones. If there was, half the country would be unemployed.”
“But what can I say? That’s how business works. Nobody gives a crap about ethics. That’s why people like me will always be successful.”
““Reversing gender stereotypes doesn’t eliminate them,” 6 says, tossing the bacon. “You just create a whole new set of prejudices.””
“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.”
“Senior Management may have been incompetent; it may have been corrupt; it was certainly full of assholes—but they were their incompetent, corrupt assholes.”
“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.”
“"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?"”
“Someone tried to tell me the other day that the only habitable place in America is California. But I just don’t understand how you could spend your life restricted to summer outfits.”
“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.”
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.”
Max Barry Quotes by Topic
Find exactly what you are looking for by browsing this categorized list of Max Barry quotes by topic.
Max Barry on Marketing 3 quotes
“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.”
Max Barry on Management 3 quotes
“You can say this for Senior Management: it knows how to articulate a goal. The strategy may be fuzzy, the execution nonexistent, but Senior Management knows what it wants.”
Max Barry on Work 2 quotes
“Ninety-five percent of all jobs suck, Jones. That’s why people get paid to do them.”
Max Barry on Sales 2 quotes
“Elizabeth is smart, ruthless, and emotionally damaged; that is, she is a sales representative.”
Max Barry on Manager 2 quotes
“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.”
Max Barry on Ethics 2 quotes
“She takes a deep breath. “Whoo. Okay. Tell me how you justify buying a new pair of shoes.” “What?” “When there are starving people in Africa, what kind of person spends two hundred bucks on shoes? See, once you buy into that paradigm, it’s a bottomless pit. You can never feel good about yourself while there’s anybody in the world poor or hungry, which there always is, Jones, and has been since the dawn of time, so you feel guilty and hypocritical all the time. I'm consistent. I admit I don’t care. You want me to reassure you that Alpha is ethical, but I'm not going to do it, because ethics is bullshit. It’s the spin we put on our lives to justify what we do. I say, be big enough to live without rationalizations.””
Max Barry on Government
“"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."”
About Max Barry
Max Barry (born 18 March 1973) is an Australian novelist, short-story writer and essayist. His books include Syrup, Jennifer Government, and Company.