Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)

by Ernest Cline

Being human totally sucks most of the time. Videogames are the only thing that make life bearable.

So now you have to live the rest of your life knowing you’re going to die someday and disappear forever. “Sorry.”

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

Spending time with her was intoxicating.

I’d come to see my rig for what it was: an elaborate contraption for deceiving my senses, to allow me to live in a world that didn’t exist. Each component of my rig was a bar in the cell where I had willingly imprisoned myself.

“No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful.”

The once-great country into which I’d been born now resembled its former self in name only. It didn’t matter who was in charge. Those people were rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and everyone knew it.

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.