A virtual particle is only a virtual particle because we as humans implicitly have the particle view as fundamental. There's nothing special about a fluctuation

A virtual particle is only a virtual particle because we as humans implicitly have the particle view as fundamental. There's nothing special about a fluctuation in a quantum field being not long lived enough or not stable enough for us to recognize it as "a real particle". So your quotation is right, but you need to go one level deeper.