Ernest Cline Quotes

I notice when I'm at a party where I don't know anybody - even if I have nothing in common with somebody - we can still talk because we were raised by the same TV and cartoons and movies.

You don't ask people about the immigration policies of the U.K. or their country's agricultural policy. Instead, you talk to them about the meal they're eating or their family, and from that you get the sense of another human being, someone we can all relate to.

I try to communicate in a way that allows people in on what's going on. What's better than references to popular culture?

TV can be a thread between all of us, and it can be a powerful tool to examine life and love and what we all have in common as humans.

It's really important to have subjects that people all over the world are familiar with, and the Disney films are really great that way.

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.

I enjoy learning about different periods and people, and then taking what's universal about the human condition and seeing where it matches up. No matter where you are, certain things unite everybody.

There are so many people in the world with so many different perspectives. But ultimately, at the heart of it, they're people.

If a man comes up to me, I'm almost sure he's going to mention Rome, if it's a woman, it'll be 'Grey's Anatomy.'

We had literary references, so we knew what we were talking about. We could quote things, talk about books we'd read; you can say something, you don't have to explain it.

I can remember the first face-lift show that came on. I rang up everyone - are you watching? I'm watching.

Any institution becomes a community - whether it's a high school or a boarding school or a publishing company or a small town where everybody knows certain things about people.

I like the idea of readers feeling a familiarity, whether it's with Africa or childhood.

Anybody can relate to anyone on 'Glee' at some point in their life.

We cannot understand our humanity just by studying individuals.

I went into the world confident my tea training would open many doors. And I did particularly well with the Irish and fellow Nova Scotians over 60. But this only got me so far. It took a long time to cultivate the tricks of easy social interaction.

If you keep up with pop culture, everybody knows the joke.

Men are not tied together by papers and seals. They are led to associate by resemblances, by conformities, by sympathies.

Sports can bring people together in a way that politics cannot.

So many of my thoughts and feelings are shared by the English that England has turned into a second native land of the mind for me.

History is a table around which we can still sit and have a civil discourse.

No experience exists unless it's a shared one.

When I walk around my neighborhood, the grocery store, or the farmers market, I don't see Democrats or Republicans, Progressives or Conservatives. I see my brothers and sisters - living, breathing human beings with diverse and complicated stories, views, and desires that can't be packaged neatly in a box.

'The Room' is relationships. The room is you and me and everyone in America. That's basically what 'The Room' is.

We are all the same. Some people wear vests and live in Missouri, and some people wear tuxes and live in Hollywood. But we all talk about what's going on in the news. We have relationships. We make mistakes.