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No one in the world gets what they want and that is beautiful.Ernest Cline
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You could shove it up your ass and pretend you're a corn dog." C O U R T E S Y VIOLATION-RESPONSE MUTED-VIOLATION LOGGEDErnest Cline
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I wish someone had just told me the truth right up front, as soon as I was old enough to understand it. I wish someone had just said: “Here’s the deal, Wade. You’re something called a ‘human being.’ That’s a really smart kind of animal. Like every other animal on this planet, we’re descended from a single-celled organism that lived millions of years ago. This happened by a process called evolution, and you’ll learn more about it But trust me, that’s really how we all got here. There’s proof of it everywhere, buried in the rocks. That story you heard? About how we were all created by a super-powerful dude named God who lives up in the sky? Total bullshit. 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. “Oh, and by the way … there’s no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny. Also bullshit. Sorry, kid Deal with it. .Ernest Cline
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You're probably wondering what's going to happen to you. That's easy. The same thing is going to happen to you that has happened to every other human being who has ever lived. You're going to die. We all die. That's just how it is.Ernest Cline
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It suddenly occurred to me just how absurd this scene was: a guy wearing a suit of armor, standing next to an undead king, both hunched over the controls of a classic arcade game. It was the sort of surreal image you'd expect to see on the cover of an old issue of Heavy Metal or Dragon magazine.Ernest Cline
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Even humanity's lack of concern for its rampant overpopulation problem now made a terrible kind of sense. What difference did it make if our planet was capable of supporting all seven billion of us in the long term when a far greater threat to our numbers was waiting in the wings? And despite the overwhelming odds, humanity had done what was necessary to ensure its own survival. It filled me with a strange new sense of pride in my own species. We weren't a bunch of primitive monkeys teetering on the brink of self-destruction after all–this appeared ti be an altogether different kind of destruction we were teetering on the brink of. .Ernest Cline
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Lights, " I said softly. This had become my favorite word over the past week. In my mind, it had become synonymous with freedom.Ernest Cline
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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.Ernest Cline
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I have a thing for evil bald bad guys. The Kurgan is too sexy.Ernest Cline
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What happens when you die? Well, we're not completely sure. But the evidence seems to suggest that nothing happens. You're just dead, your brain stops working, and then you're not around to ask annoying questions anymore. Those stories you heard? About going to a wonderful place called 'heaven' where there is no pain or death and you live forever in a state of perpetual happiness? Also total bullshit. Just like all that God stuff. There's no evidence of a heaven and there never was. We made that up too. Wishful thinking. So now you have to live the rest of your life knowing you're going to die someday and disappear forever. Sorry. .Ernest Cline
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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
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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.Ernest Cline
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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. 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. Because reality is real.Ernest Cline
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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?Ernest Cline
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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.Ernest Cline
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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.Ernest Cline
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... 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.Ernest Cline
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That story you heard? About how we were all created by a super-powerful dude named God who lives up in the sky? Total bullshit. 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.Oh, and by the way.. there's no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny. Also bullshit. Sorry, kid. Deal with it.Ernest Cline
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He died when he was only nineteen years old. I was still a baby at the time, so I didn't remember him. Growing up, I'd always told myself that was lucky. Because you can't miss someone you don't remember. But the truth was, I did miss him.Ernest Cline
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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?Ernest Cline
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I watched a lot of YouTube videos of cute geeky girls playing '80s cover tunes on ukuleles. Technically, this wasn't part of my research, but I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend.Ernest Cline
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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.Ernest Cline
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My father looked as if I’d just gutted him, and I felt a pang of regret–but it was mingled with a twisted sense of satisfaction. It felt good to hurt his feelings–it was payback for the way his choices had irrevocably damaged my own.Ernest Cline
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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
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We told each other what movies we were currently watching and what books we were reading.Ernest Cline