Top 450 Ernest Cline Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “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

252. “Also, don’t touch anything, and if you can help it, try not to look at anything either – not for longer than a second or two. Otherwise you might trigger some educational minigame or side quest that you’ll be forced to complete, and we’ll have to go on without you. We don’t have time to stop and play Blue’s Clues.”

— Ernest Cline

253. “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

254. “But these were real aliens we were fighting – sentient beings with highly advanced technology, intent on destroying us. And we were outnumbered thousands to one. We should’ve been dead a hundred times already. Were humans really just better at war than they were, or all this time, had the aliens been throwing the game?”

— Ernest Cline

255. “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

256. “Now, thanks to the ONI, I could. And I did.”

— Ernest Cline

257. “Many species lack the ability to defy their own animal instincts and allow their intellect to prevail.”

— Ernest Cline

258. “My avatar materialized in front of my locker on the second floor of my high school – the exact spot where I’d been standing when I’d logged out the night before.”

— Ernest Cline

259. “A mission where you have to blow up a Death Star while being attacked by two Borg Cubes inside an asteroid field?”

— Ernest Cline

260. “Finally, I want to thank all of the writers, filmmakers, actors, artists, musicians, programmers, game designers, and geeks whose work I’ve paid tribute to in this story. These people have all entertained and enlightened me, and I hope that – like Halliday’s hunt – this book will inspire others to seek out their creations.”

— Ernest Cline

261. “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

262. “I knew Samantha wasn’t going to approve.”

— Ernest Cline

263. “Raw neural input, from a brain that was not my own.”

— Ernest Cline

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

— Ernest Cline

265. “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

266. “I wasn’t ready for any of that. I was still truly, madly, deeply in love with Samantha. And I was still reeling from losing my virginity to her just a few days earlier. I didn’t want to be unfaithful to her. I figured that cheating was cheating, whether it was live or it was Memorex.”

— Ernest Cline

267. “The hour draws near!”

— Ernest Cline

268. “This is the OASIS. We exist as nothing but raw personality in here. Art3mis:.”

— Ernest Cline

269. “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

270. “My God, it’s full of stars,” I heard a disembodied voice say. I recognized it as a sound bite from the film 2010.”

— Ernest Cline

271. “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

272. “My grades suffered. I didn’t care.”

— Ernest Cline

273. “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

274. “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

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

— Ernest Cline

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

— Ernest Cline

277. “Sorrento,” I said, trying to hide the fear in my voice, “I want you and your bosses to know something. You’re never going to find Halliday’s egg. You know why? Because he was smarter than all of you put together. It doesn’t matter how much money you have or who you try to blackmail. You’re going to lose.”

— Ernest Cline

278. “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

279. “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

280. “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

281. “Reality didn’t feel any more real than the OASIS had just felt to me. My senses couldn’t discern between the two.”

— Ernest Cline

282. “I drew one of my blasters.”

— Ernest Cline

283. “Most users chose to run a “voyeur channel,” which was like being the star of your own twenty-four-hour reality show. Hovering virtual cameras would follow your avatar around the OASIS as you went about your day-to-day activities.”

— Ernest Cline

284. “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

285. “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

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

— Ernest Cline

287. “A dream worth chasing. For the last five years, the Hunt had given me a goal and purpose. A quest to fulfill. A reason to get up in the morning. Something to look forward to.”

— Ernest Cline

288. “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

289. “I spotted a large bowl of fruit on the table – one that hadn’t been there before.”

— Ernest Cline

290. “This was not how I wanted to die. Not even close. And then my ex-girlfriend fell out of the sky.”

— Ernest Cline

291. “Glenmorangie. On the rocks.”

— Ernest Cline

292. “Then she snapped her fingers and we were standing on Europa, discussing the possibility of extraterrestrial life beneath the moon’s icy crust. I.”

— Ernest Cline

293. “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

294. “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

295. “Hello, fish,” I whispered, reciting an old incantation. “Welcome to my barrel.”

— Ernest Cline

296. “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

297. “The ability to mute my peers was one of my favorite things about attending school online, and I took advantage of it almost daily.”

— Ernest Cline

298. “I usually muted him, but I still recognized his Philly accent, and the cocky attitude that seemed to come along with it.”

— Ernest Cline

299. “You’re going to die. We all die. That’s just how it is.”

— 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