Going outside is highly overrated.

For one quarter, Black Tiger lets me escape from my rotten existence for three glorious hours. Pretty good deal.

...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.

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.

One person can keep a secret, but not two.

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.

I have to avoid things like 'World of Warcraft' or 'Minecraft', otherwise I'd never get any work done.