Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)

by Ernest Cline

I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s still the only place to get a decent meal. —Groucho Marx

This has always been one of my favorite Groucho quotes. It’s even funnier when you imagine him saying it with his trademark delivery, while wiggling his cigar and his eyebrows. I used it for the epigraph of “Level Two” because it’s also weirdly fitting for Wade’s life in that section, when he retreats completely into the virtual world of the OASIS and only logs out to sleep and eat and attend to the needs of his physical body in reality. This line made it into the movie, too.