Quotes from Ernest Cline

I'm a gamer, Zack. Like you. When I find myself confronted with a puzzle, I can't help but try to solve it.

I knew there was probably life elsewhere. But given the vast size and age of the universe, I also knew how astronomically unlikely it was we would ever make contact with it, much less within the narrow window of my own lifetime. We were all probably stuck here for the duration, on the third rock from our sun. Boldly going extinct.

as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it's also the only place where you can find true happiness.

My whole life, I felt like I was destined to do something important, but I was only ever good at videogames, which I always figured would be completely useless. But it's not useless, and neither am I. I think this is what I was always destined to do with my life. I just never knew it.

What about The Simpsons, you ask? I knew more about Springfield than I knew about my own city.

Sitting alone in the dark, watching the show on my laptop, I always found myself imagining that I lived in that warm, well-lit house, and that those smiling, understanding people were my family. That there was nothing so wrong in the world that we couldn't sort it out by the end of a single half-hour episode (or maybe a two-parter, if it was something really serious).

Watching Knotcher torment Casey while the rest of us just sat and watched filled me not only with self-loathing, but with disgust for my whole species. If there were other civilizations out there, why would they ever want to make contact with humanity? If this was how we treated each other, how much kindness could we possibly show to some race of bug-eyed beings from beyond?

In the far reaches of the world, under a lost and lonely hill, lies the TOMB OF HORRORS. This labyrinthine crypt is filled with terrible traps, strange and ferocious monsters, rich and magical treasures, and somewhere within rests the evil DemiLich.

You cannot escape your destiny,' 

I was staring out the classroom window and daydreaming of adventure when I spotted the flying saucer.

If I was feeling depressed or frustrated about my lot in life, all I had to do was tap the Player One button, and my worries would instantly slip away as my mind focused itself on the relentless pixelated onslaught on the screen in front of me.

Parzival 110,000 highscore

Man, I'm such a motormouth! A jabberjaw. A flibbertigibbet.

Mr. S was finally retiring this year, which was a good thing, because he appeared to have run out of shits to give sometime in the previous century.

These new helmets can read your thoughts, too," Ray joked. "But you have to think in Russian.

Maybe every time an intelligent species grew advanced enough to invent a global computer network, they would then develop some form of social media, which would immediately fill these beings with such an intense hatred for one another that they ended up wiping themselves out within four or five decades.

You're a fucking toaster!

I knew Armada was only a videogame, but I'd never been one of the "best of the best" at anything before, and my accomplishment gave me a real sense of pride.

I don't know, maybe your experience differed from mine. For me, growing up as a human being on the planet Earth in the twenty-first century was a real kick in the teeth. Existentially speaking.

Sir, the only problem is that you're a complete fucking moron," I said.

The bastard even refused to watch E.T.! Who doesn't love E.T., I ask you?

As terrifying and painful as reality can be, it's also the only place where you can find true happiness.

As I watched them embrace, there on the front lawn, my heart was rocked by waves of unbridled joy. It occurred to me that up until this moment I'd only ever experienced the bridled kind.

You and the other Sux0rz can all go fuck a duck.