World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

by Max Brooks

Most people don’t believe something can happen until it already has. That’s not stupidity or weakness, that’s just human nature.

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…

The only rule that ever made sense to me I learned from a history, not an economics, professor at Wharton. “Fear,” he used to say, “fear is the most valuable commodity in the universe.” That blew me away. “Turn on the TV,” he’d say. “What are you seeing? People selling their products? No. People selling the fear of you having to live without their products.” Fuckin’ A, was he right. Fear of aging, fear of loneliness, fear of poverty, fear of failure. Fear is the most basic emotion we have. Fear is primal. Fear sells. That was my mantra. “Fear sells.”

All I had to say was “May Prevent Some Viral Infections.” That was it! Now I understand why it used to be illegal to shout fire in a crowded theater. People weren’t going to say “Hey, I don’t smell smoke, is there really a fire,” no, they say “Holy shit, there’s a fire! RUN!”

It wasn’t even the idea of safety anymore, it was the idea of the idea of safety!

You speak with rational hindsight.

We were taught that, even if we wore a uniform, that our first sworn duty was to our conscience, no matter what the consequences.

You can’t blame anyone else, not the plan’s architect, not your commanding officer, no one but yourself. You have to make your own choices and live every agonizing day with the consequences of those choices.

Why should things be as they should be? They never have been before.

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.

all we have is what we want to be.”

Ignorance was the real enemy,

I had only his voice to rely on, and you can tell everything about a person by what happens when he opens his mouth.

No, this man, and those who agreed with him, weren’t talking about justice for the future. They just wanted revenge for the past.