Max Barry Quote
Of course the Curies died. They identified ionizing radiation while bathing in it. There were risks involved in being your own guinea pig. But there was a long tradition of scientists doing just that: of paying for the expansion of human knowledge with their lives. I didn't deserve to be categorized with them, because honestly, I wasn't interested in the greater good. I just wanted to make myself better legs. I didn't mind other people benefiting in some long-term indirect way but it wasn't what motivated me. I felt guilty about this for a while. Every time a lab assistant looked at me with starstruck eyes, I felt I should confess: Look, I'm not being heroic. I'm just interested in seeing what I can do. Then it occured to me that maybe they all felt this way. All these great scientists who risked their themselves to bring light to darkness, maybe they weren't especially altruistic either. Maybe they were like me, seeing what they could do.
Of course the Curies died. They identified ionizing radiation while bathing in it. There were risks involved in being your own guinea pig. But there was a long tradition of scientists doing just that: of paying for the expansion of human knowledge with their lives. I didn't deserve to be categorized with them, because honestly, I wasn't interested in the greater good. I just wanted to make myself better legs. I didn't mind other people benefiting in some long-term indirect way but it wasn't what motivated me. I felt guilty about this for a while. Every time a lab assistant looked at me with starstruck eyes, I felt I should confess: Look, I'm not being heroic. I'm just interested in seeing what I can do. Then it occured to me that maybe they all felt this way. All these great scientists who risked their themselves to bring light to darkness, maybe they weren't especially altruistic either. Maybe they were like me, seeing what they could do.
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About Max Barry
Barry is also the creator of NationStates, an online game created to help advertise Jennifer Government that eventually evolved into its own online community. He is the owner of the website "Tales of Corporate Oppression". He lives in Melbourne with his wife and daughters and worked as a marketer for Hewlett-Packard before he became a novelist.
In early 2004 Barry converted his web site to a blog and began regularly posting to it. In the November 2004 issue of the magazine Fast Company the novel Company was ranked at number 8 on a list of the top 100 "people, ideas, and trends that will change how we work and live in 2005". Barry wrote the screenplay for Syrup, which was released in theatres on 7 June 2013. Universal Pictures has acquired screen rights to Company, which will be adapted by Steve Pink. Jennifer Government was optioned by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney's now defunct Section Eight Productions. His novel Machine Man initially was an online serial, but has since been updated and published in 2011 by Vintage Books. The film rights have been picked up by Mandalay Pictures.