Max Barry

'Your brain doesn't process language quite like other people. Why that is, I have no idea.' 'I have a superior brain?' 'Uh,' Eliot said, 'I wouldn't go that far.'

The most fundamental thing about a person is desire. It defines them. Tell me what a person wants, truly wants, and I'll tell you who they are, and how to persuade them.

There's no requirement that jobs be meaningful. If there was, half the country would be unemployed.

Within perfect walls there is nothing worth protecting. There is, in fact, nothing. And so we exchange privacy for intimacy.

Well, I like to know where I'm going before I try to get there. It's a mistake to try to execute a plan before you've thought of one, in my experience.

She__ such a bitch,_ Tina says, which I find a little contradictory, but overall quite true. __he__ got to be in charge of everything.__ sit next to her. __ell, I guess. But in business, that__ leadership.__ina stares at me for a second. __ can__ believe you consider that a positive trait. How about her inability to accept other points of view? Is it good leadership to be narrow, too?___ocus,_ I say. __hey call that focus.__ina stares at me. __er paranoia?___usiness savvy.___ompulsive need to have everything just how she wants it?___rganizational skills.___ggressiveness?___ggressiveness,_ I say, __s already a good thing.___esus Christ,_ Tina says, her eyebrow ring glinting in the morning sun. __ometimes I worry about this country.

Last month we had to sit through a presentation on eliminating redundancy, and it was a bunch of Power Point slides, plus a guy reading out what was on the slides, and then he gave us all hard copies. I don__ understand these things.

There are stories _ legends, really _ of the __teady job._ Old-timers gather graduates around the flickering light of a computer monitor and tell stories of how the company used to be, back when a job was for life, not just for the business cycle. _ The graduates snicker. A steady job! They__e never heard of such a thing.

'You can't stop me. Your word voodoo, it doesn't work on me. Right? So how do you think you're going to-' Eliot produced a pistol. He didn't seem to pull it from anywhere. He just suddenly had it. Wil's eyes stung. 'See?' Eliot put away the gun. 'There are all kinds of persuasion.'

Good words were the difference between Emily eating well and not. And what she had found worked best were not facts or arguments but words that tickled people__ brains for some reason, that just amused them. Puns, and exaggerations, and things that were true and not at the same time.

It was always this way: The more people talked, the more they obscured. You didn't need to argue for the truth. You could see it.

All empires fall, eventually._ __ut why? It__ not for lack of power. In fact, it seems to be the opposite. Their power lulls them into comfort. They become undisciplined. Those who had to earn power are replaced by those who have known nothing else. Who have no comprehension of the need to rise above base desires.[__

She had been in situations like this, where people said, Convince me, and in none of those had they actually wanted to be convinced. She could lay down a perfect argument and they just invented new bullshit on the spot to justify why the answer was still no. When people said, Convince me, she knew it didn__ mean they had an open mind. It meant they had power and wanted to enjoy it a minute.

People resist a census, but give them a profile page and they'll spend all day telling you who they are.

I read once that you need two things to be happy: any two of health, money, and love. You can cover the absense of one with the other two... But now I realized this was unmitigated bullshit, because health and money did not compare with love at all.

You come to work every day but you hardly get to know anyone. I don't even know the names of half the people I see in the elevators. They say the company is a big family, but I don't know them. And even the people I do, like you two, and Elizabeth, and Roger - do I really? I mean, I like you guys, but we only ever talk about work. When I'm out with friends, or at home, I never talk about work. The other day, I tried to explain to my sister why it's such a huge deal that Elizabeth ate Roger's donut, and she thought I was insane. And you know what, I agreed with her. At home I couldn't even think why it mattered. Because I'm a different person at home. When I leave this place at night, I can feel myself changing. Like shifting gears in my head. And you guys don't know that; you just know what I'm like here, which is terrible, because I think I'm better away from work. I don't even like who I am here. Is that just me? Or is everyone different when they come to work? If they are, then what are they really like? How can we ever know? All we know are the Work People.

My own fault. The equipment had safeties but your primary piece of protective equipment was your brain. There was a presumption that anyone entering this room was intelligent enough to keep away from hot things, sharp things, and things carrying large stores of momentum.

Imagine a hundred million people clicking polls and typing in their favorite TV shows and products and political leanings, day after day. It__ the biggest data profile ever. And it__ voluntary. That__ the funny part. People resist a census, but give them a profile page and they__l spend all day telling you who they are.