Top 450 Ernest Cline Quotes (2024 Update)
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251. “I quickly lost track of time. I forgot that my avatar was sitting in Halliday’s bedroom and that, in reality, I was sitting in my hideout, huddled near the electric heater, tapping at the empty air in front of me, entering commands on an imaginary keyboard. All of the intervening layers slipped away, and I lost myself in the game within the game. In.”

— Ernest Cline

252. “Three hidden keys open three secret gates Wherein the errant will be tested for worthy traits And those with the skill to survive these straits Will reach The End where the prize awaits.”

— Ernest Cline

253. “But you do realize that nearly half the people on this planet are starving, right?” I detected no malice in her voice. She sounded like she genuinely believed I might not be aware of this fact. “Yes, I know,” I said defensively. “The reason so many people are starving is because we’ve wrecked the planet. The Earth is dying, you know? It’s time to leave.”

— Ernest Cline

254. “Also, it turns out that burning all of those fossil fuels had some nasty side effects, like raising the temperature of our planet and screwing up the environment. So now the polar ice caps are melting, sea levels are rising, and the weather is all messed up. Plants and animals are dying off in record numbers, and lots of people are starving and homeless. And we’re still fighting wars with each other, mostly over the few resources we have left.”

— Ernest Cline

255. “Good luck, Parzival,” he said. “And thanks. Thanks for playing my game.”

— Ernest Cline

256. “The collected knowledge, art, and amusements of all human civilization were there, waiting for me. But gaining access to all of that information turned out to be something of a mixed blessing. Because that was when I found out the truth.”

— Ernest Cline

257. “Only time would tell.”

— Ernest Cline

258. “The hour draws near!”

— Ernest Cline

259. “Don’t look directly in their eyes!” I heard Aech shout at us. “Never look in any of their eyes, OK?” I immediately averted my eyes and saw Shoto do the same thing. Aech caught us both staring at the ground. “I didn’t tell you to avoid looking at them!” Aech shouted. “Just avoid looking any of them in the eye for longer than a second or two, or they’ll go berserk, OK?”

— Ernest Cline

260. “On the day the Hunt began, the day I’d decided to become a gunter, I’d renamed my avatar Parzival, after the knight of Arthurian legend who had found the Holy Grail.”

— Ernest Cline

261. “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. Anorak’s Almanac, chapter 77, verses 11–20.”

— Ernest Cline

262. “The Copper Key awaits explorers In a tomb filled with horrors But you have much to learn If you hope to earn A place among the high scorers.”

— Ernest Cline

263. “There it was: number 42. 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.”

— Ernest Cline

264. “Playing old videogames never failed to clear my mind and set me at ease. 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.”

— Ernest Cline

265. “Astronaut Kjell Lindgren, for giving me a guided tour of NASA, for sharing his patriotism and enthusiasm with me, and for taking the cover of my first novel up in outer space. I want to be him when I grow up.”

— Ernest Cline

266. “I’d realized that the best thing for my mental health would be to abandon social media altogether.”

— Ernest Cline

267. “My generation had never known a world without the OASIS. To us, it was much more than a game or an entertainment platform. It had been an integral part of our lives for as far back as we could remember. We’d been born into an ugly world, and the OASIS was our one happy refuge.”

— Ernest Cline

268. “What happens when you die? Well, we’re not completely sure. But the evidence seems to suggest that nothing happens. You’re just dead, your brain stops working, and then you’re not around to ask annoying questions anymore.”

— Ernest Cline

269. “I stepped inside, closed the door, and locked it behind me. Then I made a silent vow not to go outside again until I had completed my quest. I would abandon the real world altogether until I found the egg.”

— Ernest Cline

270. “Users could now teleport back and forth between their favorite fictional worlds. Middle Earth. Vulcan. Pern. Arrakis. Magrathea. Discworld, Mid-World, Riverworld, Ringworld. Worlds upon worlds.”

— Ernest Cline

271. “Welcome to the OASIS, Parzival!”

— Ernest Cline

272. “Cameron, Gilliam, Jackson, Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And, of course, Kevin Smith.”

— Ernest Cline

273. “H-h-hey there, compadre!”

— Ernest Cline

274. “The captain conceals the Jade Key in a dwelling long neglected But you can only blow the whistle once the trophies are all collected For.”

— Ernest Cline

275. “I should be thanking you. I haven’t had this much fun in decades!”

— Ernest Cline

276. “I watched every episode of The Greatest American Hero, Airwolf, The A-Team, Knight Rider, Misfits of Science, and The Muppet Show.”

— Ernest Cline

277. “To be honest, the future doesn’t look too bright. You were born at a pretty crappy time in history. And it looks like things are only gonna get worse from here on out. Human civilization is in ‘decline.’ Some people even say it’s ’collapsing.”

— Ernest Cline

278. “The same goes for Marie Curie. Before she discovered radium, you can be certain she first discovered the little man in the canoe.”

— Ernest Cline

279. “Setec Astronomy.”

— Ernest Cline

280. “I thought. You’re going to turn it into a fascist corporate theme park.”

— Ernest Cline

281. “The moment I began searching for the egg, the future no longer seemed so bleak.”

— Ernest Cline

282. “The sudden change in her eyes says it all. One second she loves me, and the next she loves me not.”

— Ernest Cline

283. “The bay doors embedded on the starboard side of the Doolittle’s bow irised open and the Icebreaker launched out of it, accompanied by a dense escort of three dozen fighters.”

— Ernest Cline

284. “There was no downtime between calls, because there were always several hundred morons in the call queue, all of them willing to wait on hold for hours to have a tech rep hold their hand and fix their problem. Why bother looking up the solution online? Why try to figure the problem out on your own when you could have someone else do your thinking for you?”

— Ernest Cline

285. “Well, I’m no Yngwie Malmsteen or anything,” I said. “I’m still learning.”

— Ernest Cline

286. “Passion was passion and love was love, regardless of who the participants involved were, or what sort of body they were assigned at birth.”

— Ernest Cline

287. “My haptic suit did its best to simulate the sensation of torrents of falling water striking my body, but it felt more like someone pounding on my head, shoulders, and back with a bundle of sticks.”

— Ernest Cline

288. “Then what are you interested in, Herobrine?” I asked. “Why are you here?”

— Ernest Cline

289. “My life wasn’t so bad. At least that’s what I kept telling myself, in a vain attempt to stave off the epic loneliness I now felt.”

— Ernest Cline

290. “I also absorbed the complete filmographies of each of his favorite directors. Cameron, Gilliam, Jackson, Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And, of course, Kevin Smith.”

— Ernest Cline

291. “He was dressed in a plaid bathrobe and bunny slippers.”

— Ernest Cline

292. “He chuckled softly. I wanted to sock him in the face.”

— Ernest Cline

293. “Some people define themselves by railing against all of the things they hate, while explaining why everyone else should hate it too. But not me. I prefer to lead with my love – to define myself through joyous yawps of admiration, instead of cynical declarations of disdain.”

— Ernest Cline

294. “She used to have to force me to log out every night, because I never wanted to return to the real world. Because the real world sucked. I.”

— Ernest Cline

295. “I’d finally gained enough distance from my addiction to realize something. Human beings were never meant to participate in a worldwide social network comprised of billions of people.”

— Ernest Cline

296. “I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life. Right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real. Do you understand?”

— Ernest Cline

297. “I was devastated. I was still in love with her.”

— Ernest Cline

298. “The vast wasteland of television programming had finally reached its zenith, and the average person was no longer limited to fifteen minutes of fame.”

— Ernest Cline

299. “Glenmorangie. On the rocks.”

— Ernest Cline

300. “ONI technology is also going to save hundreds of millions of lives,” I say self-righteously. “By preventing the spread of all sorts of infectious diseases – like the flu pandemic.”

— Ernest Cline