Ernest Cline Quotes

Going outside is highly overrated.

No one in the world gets what they want and that is beautiful.

I felt like a kid standing in the world's greatest video arcade without any quarters, unable to do anything but walk around and watch the other kids play.

Video games paid for my house. What am I saying? Go ahead and keep playing!

I've never really collected anything other than old Atari cartridges. I only had, like, 12 Atari games as a kid, so at some point in my 20s I decided I was going to own all of them.

Being human totally sucks most of the time. Videogames are the only thing that make life bearable.

You were born at a pretty crappy time in history. And it looks like things are only gonna get worse from here on out.

I've heard Stephen King say that when you write a novel you end up revealing everything about yourself.

I have a thing for evil bald bad guys. The Kurgan is too sexy.

Continue your quest by taking the test. Yes, but what test? What test was I supposed to take? The Kobayashi Maru? The Pepsi Challenge? Could the clue have been any more vague?

I think it's a bit silly to brand the Internet as the 'downfall of youth.'

You’re evil, you know that?” I said. She grinned and shook her head. “Chaotic Neutral, sugar.

I never ran out of ammo, because each time I fired a round, a new round was teleported into the bottom of the clip. My bullet bill this month was going to be huge.

I was one of the boys who made passes at girls who wore glasses. Any girl who was smarter than me - that was a huge turn-on.

Everybody has this fond association with the car from Back to the Future, but most people have never seen one. I've seen people drive off the berm trying to take pictures. It ends up being dangerous.

I was obsessed. I wouldn't quit. My grades suffered. I didn't care.

"Lights," I said softly. This had become my favorite word over the past week. In my mind, it had become synonymous with freedom.

I burned through all of my extra lives in a matter of minutes, and my two least-favorite words appeared on the screen: GAME OVER.

I don't know if the '80s were unique, but we certainly got original, groundbreaking stuff at the time with movies like 'Back to the Future' and 'Star Wars' - movies that became classics.

You'd be amazed how much research you can get done when you have no life whatsoever.

As far as my house, I have a ton of video games and three or four old consoles.

I've been invited to speak at about 20 colleges. There's always this moment when I'm having dinner with the college president: 'Ernie, where'd you go to school?'

I was just starting out, trying to become a screenwriter, and I became the Austin slam champion three times. For a nerdy, kind of a socially awkward guy, that did wonders for my self esteem.

I've wanted to own a DeLorean since I was 10 years old, but it always seemed like a silly daydream. Like owning the "A-Team" van or something.

My favorite video game of all time is called 'Black Tiger'. It's a Capcom Dungeons and Dragons game from 1987. I have the actual arcade version sitting in my office.

Everybody uses pop culture as a shorthand.

It is on!" Aech shouted into his comlink. "it is on like Red Dawn!

A river of words flowed between us.

The clans began to bombard the outer force field with rockets, missiles, nukes, and harsh language.

...now that everyone could vote from home, via the OASIS, the only people who could get elected were movie stars, reality TV personalities, or radical televangelists.

I was 7 years old when the '80s began and 17 years old when they ended, so it was an incredibly formative decade for me.

For one quarter, Black Tiger lets me escape from my rotten existence for three glorious hours. Pretty good deal.

My characters are all kind of geek archetypes of people I've encountered at gaming and comic book conventions.

I've retroactively made all that wasted time rotting my brain into research. It makes me a hypocrite when I try to tell my own daughter, "I don't know, I think we've played a little too much Mario."

I have to avoid things like 'World of Warcraft' or 'Minecraft', otherwise I'd never get any work done.

I'm incredibly nostalgic for the '80s, because I think that's when Geek Culture really kicked in to high gear.

It's so much better to hand over a finished book than having all these people waiting.

I wanted to be able to write in the voice that I talk to my friends and assume that everybody would know what I was talking about.

Cops pull me over just to get a better look. They never give me a ticket, even if I'm speeding, but they will ask to take pictures.

I notice when I'm at a party where I don't know anybody - even if I have nothing in common with somebody - we can still talk because we were raised by the same TV and cartoons and movies.

One person can keep a secret, but not two.

Everybody uses pop culture as a shorthand. You might make an obscure reference to Monty Python or Iron Eagle that only some people will get, but if they do it conveys a world of meaning.

I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn't know how to connect with the people there.

We told each other what movies we were currently watching and what books we were reading.

... you only know what I want you to know, you only see what I want you to see."...Wade: " I don't care! I am in love with your mind, with the person you are. I couldn't care about the packaging.

My father looked as if I'd just gutted him - but it was mingled with a twisted sense of satisfaction. It felt good to hurt his feelings.

Maybe they seeded life on Earth millions of years ago, and now they're here to punish us for turning out to be such a lame species and inventing reality TV and shit?

You're going to turn it into a fascist corporate theme park where the few people who can still afford the price of admission no longer have an ounce of freedom.

Lights, " I said softly. This had become my favorite word over the past week. In my mind, it had become synonymous with freedom.