Douglas Coupland famous quotes

Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life's cruelest irony.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Life #Lonely #Loneliness

One of the cruelest things you can do to another person is pretend you care about them more than you really do.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Care #Persons

I am going to give you a piece of advice... advice I wish I'd been told in guidance class back in high school, in between the don't-do-acid and don't-drink-and-drive films. I wish our counselors had told us, 'When you grow older a dreadful, horrible sensation will come over you. It's called loneliness, and you think you know what it is now, but you don't. Here is the list of the symptoms, and don't worry—loneliness is the most universal sensation on the planet. Just remember one fact—loneliness will pass. You will survive and you will be a better human for it.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Loneliness #School #Thinking

Life is boring. People are vengeful. Good things always end. We do so many things and we don’t know why, and if we do find out why, it’s decades later and knowing why doesn’t matter any more.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Knowing #People #Matter

Flying dreams mean that you're doing the right thing with your life.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Dream #Mean #Flying

Starved for affection, terrified of abandonment, I began to wonder if sex was really just an excuse to look deeply into another human being's eyes.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Sex #Eye #Looks

I don't deserve a soul, yet I still have one. I know because it hurts.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Hurt #Philosophy #Soul

When you crop the photo, you tell a lie.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Lying #Crops

If you're not a tree hugger, then you're a what, a tree hater?
-- Douglas Coupland

#Hater #Tree

In periods of rapid personal change, we pass through life as though we are spellcast. We speak in sentences that end before finishing. We sleep heavily because we need to ask so many questions as we dream alone. We bump into others and feel bashful at recognizing souls so similar to ourselves.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Dream #Sleep #Soul

Here's my theory about meetings and life: the three things you can't fake are erections, competence and creativity.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Creativity #Fake #Three

I think that every reader on earth has a list of cherished books as unique as their fingerprints....I think that, as you age, you tend to gravitate towards the classics, but those aren't the books that give you the same sort of hope for the world that a cherished book does.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Book #Unique #Thinking

At least there's nothing scary about him and hopefully he doesn't see anything scary in me. We go way back, to summer camp. We KNOW each other. People I don't know just make me want to say YIKES! I'll take history over mystery any day of the week.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Summer #People #Scary

There are three things we cry for in life: things that are lost, things that are found, and things that are magnificent.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Three #Cry #Lost

If a building looks better under construction than it does when finished, then it's a failure.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Failure #Doe #Looks

It's very strange that most people don't care if their knowledge of their family history only goes back three generations.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Family #People #Three

You know, I think the people I feel saddest for are the ones who once knew what profoundness was, but who lost or became numb to the sensation of wonder, who felt their emotions floating away and just didn't care. I guess that's what's scariest: not caring about the loss.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Loss #Caring #Thinking

You keep waiting for the moral of your life to become obvious, but it never does. Work, work, work: No moral. No plot. No eureka! Just production schedules and days. You might as well be living inside a photocopier. Your lives are all they're ever going to be.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Waiting #Doe #Plot

If your life had lyrics, would they be any good?
-- Douglas Coupland

#Life #Good Life

Salad bars are like a restaurant's lungs. They soak up the impurities and bacteria in the environment, leaving you with much cleaner air to enjoy.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Air #Leaving #Bars

When you're young, you always feel that life hasn't yet begun—that "life" is always scheduled to begin next week, next month, next year, after the holidays—whenever. But then suddenly you're old and the scheduled life didn't arrive. You find yourself asking, 'Well then, exactly what was it I was having—that interlude—the scrambly madness—all that time I had before?
-- Douglas Coupland

#Holiday #Years #Finding Yourself

You guys just wait and see. We'll stand taller than these mountains. We'll bare open our hearts for the world to grab. We'll see lights where there was dimness. We'll testify together to what we have seen and felt. Life will go on--all of us--crawling; stumbling, falling perhaps. But we will be the strong ones. Our hearts will shine brightly.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Strong #Fall #Heart

Compromise is said to be the way of the world and yet I find myself feeling sick trying to accept what it has done to me.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Sick #Feelings #Trying

I wouldn't mind if the consumer culture went poof! overnight because then we'd all be in the same boat and life wouldn't be so bad, mucking about with the chickens and feudalism and the like. But you know what would be absolutely horrible. The worst? ... If, as we were all down on earth wearing rags and husbanding pigs inside abandoned Baskin-Robbins franchises, I were to look up in the sky and see a jet -- with just one person inside even -- I'd go berserk. I'd go crazy. Either everyone slides back into the Dark Ages or no one does.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Crazy #Dark #Sky

The richness of the rain made me feel safe and protected; I have always considered the rain to be healing—a blanket—the comfort of a friend. Without at least some rain in any given day, or at least a cloud or two on the horizon, I feel overwhelmed by the information of sunlight and yearn for the vital, muffling gift of falling water.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Life #Rain #Fall

You wait for fate to bring about the changes in life which you should be bringing about by yourself.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Life Changing #Fate #Waiting

Good looking people with strong, fluoridated teeth get things handed to them on platters.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Strong #People #Teeth

How can we be alive and not wonder about the stories we knit together this place we call the world? Without stories our universe is merely rocks and clouds and lava and blackness. It's a village scraped raw by warm waters leaving not a trace of what existed before.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Clouds #Rocks #Water

My secret is that I need God—that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Kindness #Giving #Sick

Time ticks by; we grow older. Before we know it, too much time has passed and we've missed the chance to have had other people hurt us. To a younger me this sounded like luck; to an older me this sounds like a quiet tragedy.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Hurt #People #Luck

Adventure without risk is Disneyland.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Travel #Adventure #Risk

After you're dead and buried and floating around whatever place we go to, what's going to be your best memory of earth? What one moment for you defines what it's like to be alive on this planet. What's your takeaway? Fake yuppie experiences that you had to spend money on, like white water rafting or elephant rides in Thailand don't count. I want to hear some small moment from your life that proves you're really alive.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Memories #Elephants #White

I don't think anyone ever gets over anything in life; they merely get used to it.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Life Lesson #Thinking #Used

And then I felt sad because I realized that once people are broken in certain ways, they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it's already happened.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Life #Depression #Sadness

Life need not be a story, but it does need to be an adventure.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Adventure #Doe #Needs

Ski boots are the worst. Solid plastic. They'll be around till the sun goes supernova.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Boots #Sun #Plastic

Why do most of us make such boring choices for the stories of our lives?
-- Douglas Coupland

#Choices #Stories #Boring

You pretend to be more eccentric than you actually are because you worry you are an interchangeable cog.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Worry #Cogs #Eccentric

The Internet has made me very casual with a level of omniscience that was unthinkable a decade ago. I now wonder if God gets bored knowing the answer to everything.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Knowing #Bored #Answers

We decided that the French could never write user-friendly software because they're so rude.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Writing #Rude #Friendly

If you want to get close to somebody, you have to tell him or her something intimate about yourself. They'll tell you something intimate in return, and if you keep this going, maybe you'll end up in love.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Want #Return #Intimate

Kids today do nothing. They're so apathetic. We used to go out and protest. All they do is shop and complain.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Kids #Complaining #Today

We want our idols to be dead because it makes death a much less scary place.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Idols #Scary #Want

There's much to be said for feeling numb. Time passes more quickly. You eat less, and because numbness encourages laziness, you do fewer things, good or bad, and the world's probably a better place for it.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Numbness #Feelings #World

In the same way you can never go backward to a slower computer, you can never go backward to a lessened state of connectedness.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Way #Computer #States

Canadians can easily 'pass for American' as long as we don't accidentally use metric measurements or apologize when hit by a car.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Apology #Long #Car

I find it hard to believe that human beings are the crowning achievement of life on earth. Something better than us has to come along.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Believe #Achievement #Earth

Your brain forms roughly 10,000 new cells every day, but unless they hook up to preexisting cells with strong memories, they die. Serves them right.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Strong #Memories #Cells

The new world lies before her eyes like an opened chest of treasure, a flock of birds over Africa, a thousand TVs all playing at once.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Lying #Eye #Bird

Workshops and seminars are basically financial speed dating for clueless people.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Clueless #People #Dating

Life always kills you in the end, but first it prevents you from getting what you want.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Getting What You Want #Firsts #Ends

Time erases both the best and the worst of us.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Worst #Erase

I'd take a helicopter up and throw microwave ovens down on the Taco Bell.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Taco Bell #Bells #Tacos

The Vienna Franks are a good example of urban white acid folk revivalism crossed with ska.
-- Douglas Coupland

#White #Example #Vienna

How can I be a part of the 1960s generation when I don't even remember any of it?
-- Douglas Coupland

#Generations #Remember #1960s

I've given up wanting to make a killing or be a bigshot. I just want to find happiness and maybe open up a little roadside cafe in Idaho.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Idaho #Finding Happiness #Cafes

You can have information or you can have a life, but you can't have both.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Information

Christmas makes everything twice as sad.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Christmas

If cats were double the size they are now, they'd probably be illegal.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Cat #Size #Illegal

Birds are a miracle because they prove to us there is a finer, simpler state of being which we may strive to attain.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Bird #Miracle #May

Never loan a book to someone if you expect to get it back. Loaning books is the same as giving them away.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Book #Giving #Loan

Handmade presents are scary because they reveal that you have too much free time.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Funny Christmas #Scary #Too Much

If human beings had genuine courage, they'd wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Halloween #Years #Costumes

Wilcox Fate is for losers.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Fate #Loser

Every single moment is a coincidence.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Single Mom #Destiny #Coincidence

If you look at life as a whole, we have to admit life's good where we live. But in an evil Twilight Zone kind of way there's nothing else to choose. In the old days there was always a Bohemia or a creative under-world to join if the mainstream life wasn't your bag - or a life of crime, or even religion.And now there's only the system. All other options have evaporated. For most people it's the System or what... death? There's nothing. There's no way out now.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Twilight #People #Evil

I don't want any vegetables, thank you. I paid for the cow to eat them for me.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Vegetables #Cows #Want

The capacity for not feeling lonely can carry a very real price, that of feeling nothing at all.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Lonely #Real #Loneliness

The person who needs the other person the least in a relationship is the stronger member.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Stronger #Needs #Express Yourself

Technology favors horrible people.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Technology #People #Favors

Purchased experiences don't count.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Counting

If you don't have a spiritual practice in place when times are good, you can't expect to suddenly develop one during a moment of crisis.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Spiritual #Practice #Soul

We sleep heavily because we need to ask so many questions as we dream alone.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Dream #Sleep #Needs

Big companies are like marching bands. Even if half the band is playing random notes, it still sounds kind of like music. The concealment of failure is built into them.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Failure #Sound #Band

You see, when you're middle class, you have to live with the fact that history will ignore you. You have to live with the fact that history can never champion your causes and that history will never feel sorry for you. It is the price that is paid for day-to-day comfort and silence. And because of this price, all happinesses are sterile; all sadnesses go unpitied.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Sorry #Sadness #Class

In the end, I think the relationships that survive in this world are the ones where two people can finish each other's sentences. Forget drama and torrid sex and the clash of opposites. Give me banter any day of the week.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Sex #Drama #Thinking

Tofu hot dogs are actually scarier than real hot dogs. It's like wanting the worst possible meat product without even the thrill of it actually being meat.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Dog #Real #Meat

The world is a glorious place, and filled with so many unexpected moments that I'd get lumps in my throat, as though I were watching a bride walk down the aisle - moments as eternal and full of love as the lifting of veils, the saying of vows and the moment of the first wedded kiss.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Wedding #Kissing #Firsts

The modern economy isn't about the redistribution of wealth, it's about the redistribution of time.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Wealth #Prosperity #Modern

The harder you try to become the opposite of your parents, the more quickly you become them.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Opposites #Parent #Trying

If someone decides to be a musician now, it means because there is no hope of money at the end of it, it means they really want to be a musician. And if someone is writing now, there is no hope for money at the end of it.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Hope #Writing #Mean

People will always choose more money over more sex
-- Douglas Coupland

#Money #Sex #People

Making eye contact with adults while dressed as a clown is risky.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Eye #Adults #Clown

You can't fake creativity, competence, or sexual arousal.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Fake People #Creativity #Arousal

Make your goals big and broad enough so that they never become answered prayers and boomerang to curse you.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Prayer #Goal #Enough

Forget about being world famous, it's hard enough just getting the automatic doors at the supermarket to acknowledge our existence.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Doors #World #Forget

People are pretty forgiving when it comes to other people's families. The only family that ever horrifies you is your own.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Family #People #Forgiving

Earth was not built for six billion people all running around and being passionate about things. The world was built for about two million people foraging for roots and grubs.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Running #Two #Roots

Failure is authentic, and because it's authentic, it's real and genuine, and because of that, it's a pure state of being.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Real #Failure #States

Capitalization implies a hierarchy, that some letters are more special than others.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Special #Letters #Hierarchy

Clowns drink to blot out the ravages of terrifying children for a living.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Children #Scary #Drink

In Canada, when we speak of water, we're speaking of ourselves. Canadians are known to be unextravagant, and one explanation of this might be that we know that wasted water means a diminished collective soul; polluted waters mean a sickened soul. Water is the basis of our self-identity, and when we dream of canoes and thunderstorms and streams and even snowballs, we're dreaming about our innermost selves.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Dream #Mean #Self

If our subconscious was attractive, we wouldn't have to bury it down deep within us.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Attractive #Subconscious

If nothing else, we simply get used to being alive.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Alive #Used

I've got 911 on speed dial.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Speed

I want pills called September 10. You take one and your mind feels like the 11th never happened.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Mind #Pills #Want

I think the killers get far too much attention.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Thinking #Attention #Killers

I think that in the future, clocks won't say three o'clock anymore. They'll just get right to the point and rename three o'clock 'Pepsi.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Thinking #Pepsi #Three

I think money is due for some sort of collapse. People are going to realize that money has a half-life, like radioactive elements.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Thinking #People #Elements

I like doing radio because it's so intimate. The moment people hear your voice, you're inside there heads, not only that, you're in there laying eggs.
-- Douglas Coupland

#Eggs #Voice #People