Quotes from Max Brooks

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? And in the end, isn't the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as "the living dead"?

PARNELL AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, TENNESSEE

As the iron door swung open, I followed Summer into a plain, gray stone room that held the strangest object I'd ever seen by far. A giant frame, four by four of nothing but obsidian blocks. But instead of a picture, this frame encased a curtain of energy. At least, that's the best way I can describe it. Swirling, purplish pink eddies attracted glowing violet flakes that seemed to appear out of nowhere. And the sound: a high, echoing rasp. Was it breathing? Was it alive?

I'm addicted to murder, and that's about the nicest way I can put it. You might say that's not technically true, that since they're already dead I'm not really killing. Horseshit; it's murder, and it's a rush like nothing else. Sure

It's fear, dude, just fear and 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. Break their spirit, that's what every successful army goes for, from tribal face paint to the "blitzkrieg" to…what did we call the first round of Gulf War Two, "Shock and Awe"? Perfect name, "Shock and Awe"!

What do you call a dog on a leash? A meal on a string.

The now familiar shovel

The first casualty of the conflict must be our own sentimentality

I still think it's one of the war's great ironies that our replacement crew ended up arriving in a privately owned civilian vehicle. Spacecraft Three, the ship originally designed for prewar orbital tourism. The pilot, with his cowboy hat and big, confident Yankee grin. [He tries his best Texas accent.] "Anyone order takeout?" [He laughs, then winces and self-medicates again.]

Yes, our defensive strategies had saved the human race, but what about the human spirit?

Zombie flesh isn't so bad.

Shame's a powerful weapon, but it depended on everyone else doing the right thing.

To even call them "units" is a joke. These were just mobs of men in uniforms, clerks

Kwang Jingshu was arrested by the MSS and incarcerated without formal

Like the kind of stuff folks drank in our world that made them giggly and stumbly and sometimes vomity?

He motions to what looks like a sharpened steel paddle at his side.] "Pouwhenua"—got it from a Maori brother who used to play for the All Blacks before the war. Bad motherfuckers, the Maori. That battle at One Tree Hill, five hundred of them versus half of reanimated Auckland.

Americans are an honest people, we expect a fair deal. I know that a lot of other cultures used to think that was naïve and even childish, but it's one of our most sacred principles. To see Uncle Sam going back on his word, revoking people's private lives, revoking their freedom…

Just because someone doesn't look like you doesn't automatically make them an enemy.

El miedo —decía—, el miedo es la mercancía más valiosa del universo. —Eso me dejó pasmado—. Encended la televisión —decía—. ¿Qué veis? ¿Gente vendiendo productos? No: gente vendiendo el miedo que tenéis de vivir sin sus productos.»

The center was a horizontal rod

Terror is a powerful weapon. Terror clouds thought.

All armies, be they mechanized or mountain guerilla, have to abide by three basic restrictions: they have to be bred, fed, and led.

The book of war, the one we've been writing since one ape slapped another

In a radiated planet, the walking dead might be the only creatures left "alive." We