Douglas Coupland Quotes

Storytelling is ultimately a creative act of pattern recognition. Through characters, plot and setting, a writer creates places where previously invisible truths become visible. Or the storyteller posits a series of dots that the reader can connect.

Douglas Coupland

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Quotes to Explore

• Music rhythms are mathematical patterns. When you hear a song and your body starts moving with it, your body is doing math. The kids in their parents' garage practicing to be a band may not realize it, but they're also practicing math.

  

  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
  • Music
  • May
  • Kids

• Middle age is when your broad mind and narrow waist begin to change places.

  

  E. Joseph Cossman
  • Mind
  • Age
  • Change

• I felt bad to have to get divorced. I wasn't proud of that.

  

  Tasha Smith
  • Bad
  • Proud
  • Get

• I was at UGA playing with Champ Bailey and Hines Ward - both guys who will probably touch the Hall of Fame one day.

  

  Omari Hardwick
  • Day
  • Fame
  • Touch

• We have this historic problem that we have a quarter of our population, the people of Quebec, who have never signed on to the Constitution. That can't go on forever.

  

  Jack Layton
  • People
  • Forever
  • Constitution

• After two years at UCLA, I decided to leave. I was convinced that no amount of education would help a black man get a job.

  

  Jackie Robinson
  • Job
  • Help
  • Man

• My favorite book in life is 'A Wrinkle In Time,' which I read before high school. It was my first introduction into the meeting of science and spirit and the universe and big thoughts and all of those interesting New Age-y concepts. It made everything make sense to me and opened up my mind.

  

  Mae Whitman
  • Life
  • Up
  • Time

• We sometimes laugh from ear to ear, but it would be impossible for a smile to be wider than the distance between our eyes.

  

  Malcolm de Chazal
  • Eyes
  • Smile
  • Distance

• As our case is new, we must think and act anew.

  

  Abraham Lincoln
  • Think
  • New
  • Act

• I made a living being a background singer for years.

  

  Katey Sagal
  • Years
  • Living
  • Singer

• I'm always cracking up when I hear what people think I should be doing.

  

  Henry Saint Clair Fredericks
  • People
  • Up
  • Think

• The spirit of the gospel is optimistic; it trusts in God and looks on the bright side of things. The opposite or pessimistic spirit drags men down and away from God, looks on the dark side, murmurs, complains, and is slow to yield obedience.

  

  Orson F. Whitney
  • God
  • Men
  • Dark

• 'Confederate,' in all of our minds, will be an alternative-history show. It's a science-fiction show. One of the strengths of science fiction is that it can show us how this history is still with us in a way no strictly realistic drama ever could, whether it were a historical drama or a contemporary drama.

  

  D. B. Weiss
  • History
  • Science
  • Drama

• Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.

  

  Baruch Spinoza
  • Nature
  • Free
  • Alone

• They're criminals, they brutalized Afghanistan, they killed our people, they destroyed our land.

  

  Hamid Karzai
  • People
  • Land
  • Criminals

• It is in your DNA to love a good story. You know, neat tales with heroes and villains and conflicts to resolve. A good story pushes our buttons, is exciting and memorable.

  

  Barry Ritholtz
  • Good
  • Love
  • Resolve

• I'm kind of honored to be a dragon lady. The dragon is a very powerful, mythical animal.

  

  Yoko Ono
  • Kind
  • Powerful
  • Animal

• I've done so many independents for so many years. Leads that nobody's seen.

  

  Sam Rockwell
  • Done
  • Years
  • Nobody

• There's that great thing about acting - you're wearing your heart on your sleeve, and you're speaking off the cuff. You know, you're fearless about it, and - and it's great. And I love it.

  

  Chris Eigeman
  • Great
  • Heart
  • Fearless

• I think the effective use of quotation is an important point in the art of writing. Given sparingly, quotations serve admirably as a climax or as a corroboration, but when they are long and frequent, they seriously weaken the effect of a book. We lose sight of the writer - he scatters our sympathy among others than himself - and the ideas which he himself advances are not knit together with our impression of his personality.

  

  George Eliot
  • Book
  • Personality
  • Sympathy

• I suspect that we might actually start selling some records with these artists in about 10 years. Some the people who invested, they're a little tight-because it's a lot of money to start up a company.

  

  Branford Marsalis
  • People
  • Up
  • Money

• You are the first President to whom the opportunity was ever offered constitutionally to inaugurate such a day. If you fail us now, you may be the last.

  

  Jay Alan Sekulow
  • May
  • Opportunity

• Storytelling is ultimately a creative act of pattern recognition. Through characters, plot and setting, a writer creates places where previously invisible truths become visible. Or the storyteller posits a series of dots that the reader can connect.

  

  Douglas Coupland