Douglas Coupland Quotes
Sometimes I wonder if the world is too interesting and too boring at the same time.
Quotes to Explore
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The last time I had to make a career decision, I was 17. I could have gone to Ballet Theatre or National Ballet of Canada. There were options. But as I became exposed to the Robbins repertoire, I realized that there was a living genius in the house.
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If people would dare to speak to one another unreservedly, there would be a good deal less sorrow in the world a hundred years hence.
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It is when we all play safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity.
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Most people don't really like to pose. It is difficult to get them to be present and relaxed under this kind of molecular scrutiny. I want them to understand I'm not simply painting them: I am painting them within a precise moment in time, as a shadow moves across their eyebrows. Then it is gone. The moment is over.
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Some people are instantly brilliant. The Kenneth Branaghs of this world are ready-formed actors at 23 - he has used his success in lots of different ways - but there are people out there for whom acting is: 'Ooh, I can get on the telly and be famous.'
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I'm the best in the world; thank you, Jesus, for that.
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We all wish to live. We all seek a world in which men are freed of the burdens of ignorance, poverty, hunger and disease. And we shall all be hard-pressed to escape the deadly rain of nuclear fall-out should catastrophe overtake us.
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I still think reading something like 'Ulysses' takes a tremendous investment of time, but it repays all of it with so much interest.
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Being right half the time beats being half-right all the time.
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Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.
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I don't tend to set out on huge world domination goals or have anything in mind. I just like to play. I like to gig a lot; I like to write music.
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Literary dementia seems dated now, but there was a time when a month in the funny farm was as de rigueur for budding writers as an M.F.A. is now. To be sent away was a badge of honor; to undergo electroshock, a glorious martyrdom.
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What we now call the browser is whatever defines the web. What fits in the browser is the World Wide Web and a number of trivial standards to handle that so that the content comes.
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I time everything. I'm a scientist at heart.
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The only time a friend has ever helped me in the industry was how I got my first job - that was through Mike Figgis.
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I've had hundreds of requests from journalists all over the world asking me to speak about Leicester, which is astonishing. It's captured the imagination.
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You gotta be really careful what you bite off. Don't bite off more than you can chew. It's a dangerous world.
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I have two daughters: One an open book, one a locked box. So the question of privacy is a challenging one. How much do kids need? How much should we give? How do we prepare them to live in a world where the very notion of privacy opens a generational chasm?
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Man is clearly made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought. And the order of thought is to begin with ourselves, and with our Author and our end.
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I have great respect for the Pope. I like the Pope. I actually like him.
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The conflict that exists today is no more than an old-style struggle for power, once again presented to mankind in semireligious trappings. The difference is that, this time, the development of atomic power has imbued the struggle with a ghostly character; for both parties know and admit that, should the quarrel deteriorate into actual war, mankind is doomed.
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We can't continue to sit on our hands and sit idly by as people are being brutalized, disenfranchised, and left out of the system.
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For centuries, we were taught that anger is bad. Our parents, teachers, priests, everyone taught us how to control and suppress our anger. But I ask: why can't we convert our anger for the larger good of society?
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Sometimes I wonder if the world is too interesting and too boring at the same time.
