Top 450 Ernest Cline Quotes (2024 Update)
Page 8 of 10

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

— Ernest Cline

352. “All of them have tentacles, like their mother! The youngest one in curls!” Diehl laughed. Cruz laughed. I laughed.”

— Ernest Cline

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

— Ernest Cline

354. “This avatar appeared inside a huge virtual call center, inside a virtual cubicle, sitting at a virtual desk, in front of a virtual computer, wearing a virtual phone headset. I thought of this place as my own private virtual hell.”

— Ernest Cline

355. “You’re an ignorant know-nothing twink.”

— Ernest Cline

356. “Maybe it was just as I had always secretly feared: The apple had fallen right next to the Crazy Tree.”

— Ernest Cline

357. “WarGames had been one of Halliday’s all-time favorite movies. Which was why I had watched it over three dozen times.”

— Ernest Cline

358. “I made a big entrance when I arrived in my flying DeLorean, which I’d obtained by completing a Back to the Future quest on the planet Zemeckis.”

— Ernest Cline

359. “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.”

— Ernest Cline

360. “She used to make me wear earplugs at night so I wouldn’t hear her in the next room, talking dirty to tricks in other time zones.”

— Ernest Cline

361. “I RODE THE turbo elevator back up to the observation deck. The moment the elevator doors swished open and I stepped into the large domed room, the odor of burning cannabis filled my nose. The smell grew increasingly stronger the farther I ventured into the room, as did the familiar strains of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, punctuated by fits of only slightly suppressed laughter.”

— Ernest Cline

362. “But I refused to give up. Until an avatar reached Halliday’s Easter egg, anything was still possible. Like any classic videogame, the Hunt had simply reached a new, more difficult level. A new level often required an entirely new strategy. I began to formulate a plan. A bold, outrageous plan that would require epic amounts of luck to pull off.”

— Ernest Cline

363. “We can’t be together anymore, Wade,” she said evenly, her voice suddenly devoid of emotion. “Not when we disagree on something so basic. And so important. Your actions today will have disastrous consequences. I’m sorry you can’t see that.”

— Ernest Cline

364. “Cats with a serious marble deficiency.”

— Ernest Cline

365. “The whole God thing is actually an ancient fairy tale that people have been telling one another for thousands of years. We made it all up. Like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.”

— Ernest Cline

366. “One artificially intelligent supercomputer pretending to be a hostile alien race for the purpose of testing humanity’s character?”

— Ernest Cline

367. “After all, I’d just won the contest to become his sole heir.”

— Ernest Cline

368. “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.”

— Ernest Cline

369. “Like any classic videogame, the Hunt had simply reached a new, more difficult level. A new level often required an entirely new strategy. I.”

— Ernest Cline

370. “His paternal tone irked me no end, and that helped to steel my resolve. I couldn’t sell out the the Sixers.”

— Ernest Cline

371. “Normally, the newsfeeds didn’t interrupt everyone’s interactive sitcoms and soap operas unless something really major had happened. Like the outbreak of some new killer virus, or another major city vanishing in a mushroom cloud. Big stuff like that.”

— Ernest Cline

372. “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

373. “The sight suddenly drove home the fantastic isolation of the place.”

— Ernest Cline

374. “This is a special strain of Yoda Kush that I myself created,” Shin said, holding up his giant spliff.”

— Ernest Cline

375. “I’d never had such a powerful, immediate connection with another human being before.”

— Ernest Cline

376. “So the real jaw-dropping news that January morning, the news that had everyone from Toronto to Tokyo crapping in their cornflakes, concerned the contents of Halliday’s last will and testament, and the fate of his vast fortune.”

— Ernest Cline

377. “The tenderness in her tone, which had once been so familiar to me, now felt completely foreign. Hearing it again was like a knife in my heart.”

— Ernest Cline

378. “Yeah, I wish we could skip this storyline crap,” Cruz said. “Bor-ing.”

— Ernest Cline

379. “It was still pretty dark down here, so I took out my flashlight and headed east, weaving my way through the dark maze, doing my best to remain unseen while being careful to avoid tripping over a shopping cart, engine block, or one of the other pieces of junk littering the narrow alleys between the stacks.”

— Ernest Cline

380. “I opened my eyes to see her staring down at me. “Thank you!” I said, throwing my arms around her. My voice came out as a whisper. “Thank you for saving me. Thank you for coming back.” I forced myself to let go of her.”

— Ernest Cline

381. “My bullet bill this month was going to be huge.”

— Ernest Cline

382. “When my ship reached Syrinx, I saw the twin moons, By-Tor and Snow Dog, that orbited the planet. Their names were taken from another classic Rush song.”

— Ernest Cline

383. “Correct,” the machine replied. “But thankfully you made the correct choice, and knowingly disengaged from the cycle of warlike escalation with your imaginary enemy. That is why I’m speaking to you now. Once the Test has been passed, the Emissary makes contact with the individual most directly responsible, to inform them that their species has been invited to join the Sodality.”

— Ernest Cline

384. “Several Sonic the Hedgehog games involved a quest to collect seven “Chaos Emeralds” that could be harnessed to obtain special powers. Inside the OASIS, dozens of different quests on Mobius Prime allowed you to collect the seven Chaos Emeralds, and I’d completed all of them. But if there was a way to trade the emeralds for one of the shards, I still hadn’t discovered it.”

— Ernest Cline

385. “We played vintage board games, watched movies, and listened to music. We talked for hours. Long, rambling conversations about everything under the sun. Spending time with her was intoxicating. We seemed to have everything in common. We shared the same interests. We were driven by the same goal. She got all of my jokes. She made me laugh. She made me think. She changed the way I saw the world. I’d never had such a powerful, immediate connection with another human being before.”

— Ernest Cline

386. “You don’t need to sell me on anything, Wade,” she said. “You’re my best friend. My favorite person.” With.”

— Ernest Cline

387. “Especially when it came to the videogames. Videogames were my area of expertise. My double-weapon specailization. My dream Jeopardy! category.”

— Ernest Cline

388. “The Solar Federation was controlled by a group of “priests,” who are described in Part II of the song, titled “The Temples of Syrinx.” Its lyrics told me exactly where the Crystal Key was hidden: We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx Our great computers fill the hallowed halls. We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx All the gifts of life are held within our walls. There was a planet in Sector Twenty-one named Syrinx. That was where I was headed now.”

— Ernest Cline

389. “These items were nothing but ones and zeros stored on the OASIS servers, but they were also status symbols.”

— Ernest Cline

390. “Og gave the Sega Ninja cabinet an awkward pat, as if it were an unfamiliar Labrador. Then he shoved both his hands into his pockets and grinned at me like a lovestruck idiot. He looked as if his pupils might change into cartoon hearts at any second.”

— Ernest Cline

391. “Competition brings out the best in me.”

— Ernest Cline

392. “Halliday’s favorite sci-fi novels, TV shows, and movies.”

— Ernest Cline

393. “Our records also show that you are currently unemployed and have therefore been classified as impecunious. Under current federal law, you are now eligible for mandatory indenturement.”

— Ernest Cline

394. “Oh, and Wolverine had that idiotic Muramasa Blade made with part of his soul. Which, while incredibly lame, was still a far cooler magical weapon than Sting!”

— Ernest Cline

395. “Newer, faster, or more versatile components were always being released, so I was constantly spending large chunks of my meager income on upgrades.”

— Ernest Cline

396. “Hello!” I shouted at the Six-Fingered Man one final time. “My name is Inigo Montoya! You killed my father. Prepare to die!”

— Ernest Cline

397. “I spotted shots from various films in the Trek and Wars franchises, mixed with shots from the various versions of War of the Worlds, The Day the Earth Stood Still, V, and even – God help us – Battlefield Earth.”

— Ernest Cline

398. “I tried my best to fit in. Year after year, my eyes would scan the lunchroom like a T-1000, searching for a clique that might accept me. But even the other outcasts wanted nothing to do with me. I was too weird, even for the weirdos. And girls? Talking to girls was out of the question. To me, they were like some exotic alien species, both beautiful and terrifying. Whenever I got near one of them, I invariably broke out in a cold sweat and lost the ability to speak in complete sentences.”

— Ernest Cline

399. “OK, Arty,” I said.”

— Ernest Cline

400. “My accusation seemed to detonate on his face like a bomb. His features began to contort, but I turned my back on him so I wouldn’t have to see the rest of his reaction. I walked out of there as fast as I could without looking.”

— Ernest Cline