Quotes from Ernest Cline

Out here on the perimeter, there are no stars.

stood frozen as the robots lumbered by, joints clanking and servos whining.

the number 42 was the "Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Life was like an extremely difficult, horribly unbalanced video game. But sometimes the game can have a surprise ending. And sometimes, when you think you've reached the end of the game, suddenly you find yourself standing in front of a whole new level. A level you've never seen before. And the only thing you can do is keep right on playing.

To win the videogame of life you just have to try to make the experience of being forced to play it as pleasant as possible, for yourself, and for all of the other players you encounter in your travels. Kira says that if everyone played the game to win, it'd be a lot more fun for everyone.

I learned the name of every last goddamn Gobot and Transformer. Land of the Lost, Thundarr the Barbarian, He-Man, Schoolhouse Rock!, G.I. Joe—I knew them all. Because knowing is half the battle.

Several paragraphs of dense text began to scroll across the screen, an unreadable blur of legalese outlining all the details of enlistment. It would have taken hours to read it all, and then I still probably wouldn't have understood a word of it.

We were witnessing the dawn of the posthuman era. The Singularity by way of simulacra and simulation.

It suddenly occurred to me just how absurd this scene was: a guy wearing a suit of armor, standing next to an undead king, both hunched over the controls of a classic arcade game. It was the sort of surreal image you'd expect to see on the cover of an old issue of Heavy Metal or Dragon magazine.

Another of Halliday's jokes—according to one of his favorite novels, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the number 42 was the "Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Y, sin poder evitarlo, me eché a reír. Era una risa absurda, sin sentido, y sabía que ella se daba cuenta, porque al momento vi que relajaba un poco los hombros y soltaba un suspiro de alivio. Y entonces ella también soltó una carcajada que, en realidad, era mitad risa y mitad llanto. O eso me pareció.

As soon as they saw Aech's score increase, they would have used Fyndoro's Tablet of Finding and learned that he was currently on Frobozz.

Probably because I couldn't bear the idea that the girl with whom I was virtually smitten might actually be some middle-aged dude named Chuck, with back hair and male-pattern baldness.

Any business that wanted to set up shop inside the OASIS had to rent or purchase virtual real estate (which Morrow dubbed "surreal estate") from GSS.

As we sprinted from the Candle Room to the Music Club to the Boudoir to the Virtual Video Room, a song called "Interactive" played on a continuous loop in every room. Aech explained that this was a song Prince wrote exclusively for a Myst-like videogame he released with the same title.

Real estate within walking distance of a big city became far too valuable to waste on a flat plane of mobile homes, so someone had cooked up the brilliant idea of, as Mr. Miller pit it, "stacking the sumbitches," to maximise the use of ground space.

Setec Astronomy.

Her instinct was always to act out of kindness and generosity instead of self-interest. She was a better person than me, and I was a better person when I was around her.

Neal Stephenson.

No," Daito said. "We're not. You're all strangers to us. For all we know, any one of you could be a Sixer spy.

Con endoesqueletos accionados con servomotor.

Lì, sotto le cupe luci fluorescenti del mio minuscolo monolocale, non c'era modo di sfuggire alla verità. Nella vita reale, non ero altro che un eremita asociale. Un recluso. Un nerd con una carnagione cadaverica e un'ossessione per la cultura pop. Ero soltanto un'altra anima perduta, triste, solitaria, che sprecava la sua vita su un videogioco osannato da tutti.

the news that had everyone from Toronto to Tokyo crapping in their cornflakes

I stopped moving forward and the sound of hoofbeats also ceased, but not until a few seconds later. I turned around and saw the source of the sound. It wasn't a horse. It was a man banging two coconut halves together.