Quotes from Ernest Cline

Screw you, Aech! And your dead grandma!

You don't live in the real world, Z. From what you've told me, I don't think you ever have. You're like me. You live inside this illusion." She motioned to our virtual surroundings.

We were all probably stuck here for the duration, on the third rock from our sun. Boldly going extinct.

The rest of the trailer reeked of cat piss and abject poverty.

Mr. Morrow, IOI owns this network..." "Of course they do!" Morrow shouted gleefully. 'The own practically everything! Including you, pretty boy! I mean did they tattoo a UPC code on your ass when they hired you to sit there and spout their corporate propaganda?

I had spent hundreds of hours gazing out at the calm, conquered suburban landscape surrounding my school, silently yearning for the outbreak of a zombie apocalypse, a freak accident that would give me super powers, or perhaps the sudden appearance of a band of time-traveling kleptomaniac dwarves.

I knew there was probably life elsewhere. But given the vast size and age of the universe, I also knew how astronomically unlikely it was we would ever make contact with it, much less within the narrow window of my own lifetime. We were all probably stuck here for the duration, on the third rock from our sun. Boldly going extinct.

Watching Knotcher torment Casey while the rest of us just sat and watched filled me not only with self-loathing, but with disgust for my whole species. If there were other civilizations out there, why would they ever want to make contact with humanity? If this was how we treated each other, how much kindness could we possibly show to some race of bug-eyed beings from beyond?

I was staring out the classroom window and daydreaming of adventure when I spotted the flying saucer.

Maybe every time an intelligent species grew advanced enough to invent a global computer network, they would then develop some form of social media, which would immediately fill these beings with such an intense hatred for one another that they ended up wiping themselves out within four or five decades.

I knew Armada was only a videogame, but I'd never been one of the "best of the best" at anything before, and my accomplishment gave me a real sense of pride.

The bastard even refused to watch E.T.! Who doesn't love E.T., I ask you?