“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. There, inside the game's two-dimensional universe, life…”— Ernest Cline, amazon.comTagged: Video Games, Escapism, Depression
“The farther I went, the more confident I became.”— Ernest Cline, amazon.comTagged: Confidence, Moving Forward, Success
“We were all probably stuck here for the duration, on the third rock from our sun. Boldly going extinct.”— Ernest Cline, amazon.comTagged: Earth, extinction, humanity
“I was watching a collection of vintage '80s cereal commercials when I paused to wonder why cereal manufacturers no longer included toy prizes inside every box. It was a tragedy, in my opinion. Another sign that civilization was going straight down the tubes.”— Ernest Cline, amazon.comTagged: cereal, civilization, decline
“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.”— Ernest Cline, amazon.comTagged: arcade, Children, helpless
“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…”— Ernest Cline, amazon.comTagged: Love, Friendship, Relationships
“In a way, these old role-playing games had been the first virtual-reality simulations, created long before computers were powerful enough to do the job. In those days, if you wanted to escape to another world, you had to create it yourself, using your brain, some paper, pencils, dice, and a few rule…”— Ernest Cline, amazon.comTagged: role playing, Games, Technology
“I was in love with her. I could feel it, deep in the soft, chewy caramel center of my being.”— Ernest Cline, amazon.comTagged: Love, Dating, Relationships
“Talking to girls was out of the question. To me, they were like some exotic alien species, both beautiful and terrifying.”— Ernest Cline, amazon.comTagged: Girls, Women, Dating
“Anyone smart enough to accomplish what they have should know better than to risk everything by talking to the vultures in the media.”— Ernest Cline, amazon.comTagged: Media, Pop Culture, interviews
“In real life, I was nothing but an antisocial hermit. A recluse. A pale-skinned pop culture–obsessed geek.”— Ernest Cline, amazon.comTagged: antisocial, hermit, nerd, geek
“Virtual sex, no matter how realistic, was really nothing but glorified, computer-assisted masturbation.”— Ernest Cline, amazon.comTagged: masturbation, Technology, Porn, computers
“I understood her, trusted her, and loved her as a dear friend. None of that had changed, or could be changed by anything as inconsequential as her gender, or skin color, or sexual orientation.”— Ernest Cline, amazon.comTagged: Friendship, gender, skin color, sexuality
“For a bunch of hairless apes, we've actually managed to invent some pretty incredible things.”— Ernest Cline, amazon.comTagged: humans, inventions, technoloy
“Being human totally sucks most of the time. Video games are the only thing that make life bearable.”— Ernest Cline, amazon.comTagged: Video Games, Escapism, Life
“I never felt at home in the real world. 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. Becaus…”— Ernest Cline, amazon.comTagged: Reality, Technology, Happiness
“City-sized shopping malls were erected in the blink of an eye, and storefronts spread across planets like time-lapse footage of mold devouring an orange.”— Ernest Cline, amazon.comTagged: Shopping, commercialism, Cities