“I hadn't lived a real life―I'd had just a model of a life. Everything I did, everything I thought, was suspended safely by strings, too high up for anyone to damage. Zero contact, zero risk. Now those strings had been cut and I was going to die, never having had a chance to live without them.”

“Not that I regretted having Annie; I'd never felt that way for a second. I just regretted that I'd never had a chance to live the life I'd thought I was supposed to.”

“I had been right, I was still right, I was always right. I had lived my life one way and I could just as well have lived it another. I had done this and I hadn't done that. I hadn't done this thing but I had done another. And so?”

“Whatever happened after, even the loss, my life would be less if I had not had that. On the day I die, my only regret would be if I hadn't had it. If I had been too much a coward to take it while I had a chance.”

“She did it, though she hated opera. She hated everything about it. The overblown sense of drama. The violence and lewdness. No one had ever died of heartbreak in Reverie. Betrayal never led to murder. Those things didn’t happen anymore. They had the Realms now. They could experience anything without taking risks. Now, life was Better than Real.”

“The answer is simple: if you cannot find meaning inherent in life right now, as you live it in this visible world, the addition of an infinite amount more of the same isn't about to somehow make it any more meaningful! Add a whole string of zeroes to a zero and watch what happens.”