Ernest Cline
I've heard Stephen King say that when you write a novel you end up revealing everything about yourself.Collection: Kings
I have a thing for evil bald bad guys. The Kurgan is too sexy.Collection: Sexy
You’re evil, you know that?” I said. She grinned and shook her head. “Chaotic Neutral, sugar.Collection: Evil
You'd be amazed how much research you can get done when you have no life whatsoever.Collection: Funny
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.Collection: People
I was a painfully shy, awkward kid, with low self-esteem and almost no social skills. Online, I didn't have a problem talking to people or making friends. But in the real world. interacting with other people - especially kids my own age - made me a nervous wreck. I never knew how to act or what to say, and when I did work up the courage to speak, I always seemed to say the wrong thing.Collection: Real
As we continued to talk, going through the motions of getting to know each other, I realized that we already did know each other, as well as any two people could. We’d known each other for years, in the most intimate way possible. We’d connected on a purely mental level. 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.Collection: Two
One person can keep a secret, but not two.Collection: Two
I’d designed my avatar’s face and body to look, more or less, like my own. My avatar had a slightly smaller nose than me, and he was taller. And thinner. And more muscular. And he didn’t have any teenage acne. But aside from these minor details, we looked more or less identical.Collection: Teenage
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.Collection: Python
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?'Collection: School
A river of words flowed between us.Collection: Rivers
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.Collection: Cereal
...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.Collection: Stars
For one quarter, Black Tiger lets me escape from my rotten existence for three glorious hours. Pretty good deal.Collection: Black
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.Collection: Girl
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.Collection: Giving
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.Collection: Kids
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?Collection: Challenges
It's so much better to hand over a finished book than having all these people waiting.Collection: Book
Very well! he said. You shall prove your worth by facing me in a joust! I'd never heard of an undead lich king challenging someone to a joust. Especially not in a subterranean burial chamber. All right, I said uncertainly. But won't we be needing horses for that? Not horses, he replied, stepping away from his throne. Birds.Collection: Horse
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.Collection: Bullets
It is on!" Aech shouted into his comlink. "it is on like Red Dawn!Collection: Dawn
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."Collection: Daughter
My characters are all kind of geek archetypes of people I've encountered at gaming and comic book conventions.Collection: Book
The clans began to bombard the outer force field with rockets, missiles, nukes, and harsh language.Collection: Force Fields
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.Collection: Team
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.Collection: Favorite Words
Virtual sex, no matter how realistic, was really nothing but glorified, computer-assisted masturbation.Collection: Sex
Everybody uses pop culture as a shorthand.Collection: Culture
As far as my house, I have a ton of video games and three or four old consoles.Collection: Games
"Lights," I said softly. This had become my favorite word over the past week. In my mind, it had become synonymous with freedom.Collection: Healing
In the far reaches of the world, under a lost and lonely hill, lies the TOMB OF HORRORS. This labyrinthine crypt is filled with terrible traps, strange and ferocious monsters, rich and magical treasures, and somewhere within rests the evil DemiLich.Collection: Lonely