Quotes from Max Brooks

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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

Adversity introduces us to ourselves.

There comes a point when you have to realize that the sum of all your blood, sweat, and tears will ultimately amount to zero.

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.

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.

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.

The highest distinction is service to others.

Can you ever solve poverty? Can you ever solve crime? Can you ever solve disease, unemployment, war, or any other societal herpes? Hell no.