Douglas Coupland Quotes
We were never supposed to live until 40. We were built to self-destruct at 30, whether from cancer or mental illness. We're all going way beyond our expiration date.
Quotes to Explore
-
I'm more of a 5 Live man. But I might listen to a bit of Coldplay or The Smiths.
-
Helping set the day's agenda and deciding what we used and editing it, that was a journalistic high point. I liked reporting as well. Just doing the news - the live performance - wasn't important. Working on the desk was.
-
I thought I knew there was a God. I always acknowledged that, but at the same time, I didn't live by those laws.
-
In the biographical novel, there's only one person involved. I, the author, spend two to five years becoming the main character. I do that so by the time you get to the bottom of Page 2 or 3, you forget your name, where you live, your profession and the year it is. You become the main character of the book. You live the book.
-
Our forefathers used to live longer and healthy lives.
-
That's the kind of consumer society we live in. We're always looking for the next product that's going to change your life instead of just going out and changing your life.
-
I grew up in China, but I live in the U.S. and I want my children to understand what's going on over there. They ask me sometimes, 'Are we Chinese or Australians?' My family are in L.A., New York and China, and they have the freedom to go back and forth, which is really, really nice.
-
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?
-
My voice hasn't changed really very much. I still do all my songs when I perform live and still do them in the original keys. I've been blessed with that ability to retain that.
-
My dreams were always small and puny. All I ever needed was a little house with a little picket fence by the sea. Little did I know that I would live in Malacanang Palace for 20 years and visit all the major palaces of mankind. And then also meet ordinary citizens and the leaders of superpowers.
-
Pakistan is a free country, so according to me, in a free country, it's every right of the citizen to live the way they wish.
-
What matters is to live in the present, live now, for every moment is now. It is your thoughts and acts of the moment that create your future. The outline of your future path already exists, for you created its pattern by your past.
-
I think people overplay the 'Saturday Night Live' schedule. I mean, yeah, it can be some late hours. But the late hours are usually only one or two nights out of the week. You might have a crazy six-day week, but you'll work three weeks, and then you get a week off work. I'd take most jobs if it was hard work and then I got a week off.
-
Live one day at a time emphasizing ethics rather than rules.
-
You can't understand Twenties England until you appreciate it was under a cloud of mourning. Nearly everyone was grieving.
-
To go to hospitals and see people fight and overcome cystic fibrosis or cancer or any number of illnesses is to see courage that is humbling. And athletes constantly need to be humbled.
-
When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.
-
We live in a world where it's difficult to be a woman who is strong and confident, so I like to surround myself with friends that embody that same principle and idea.
-
To me, families are fascinating. I choose to explore it through comedy and through comic situations.
-
Most adaptations of plays I hate, because they don't envision something as cinema at all, you know?
-
People come to Portland, many of them for the quality of life. They love the physical space here. And yet every year, people climbing the mountain get killed by avalanches.
-
I really wish people - maybe it's naive - wish people had priorities and were willing to be artistic patrons.
-
Not only the attackers, but the defenders - it's on the attackers to prepare themselves to break through the strong defense.
-
We were never supposed to live until 40. We were built to self-destruct at 30, whether from cancer or mental illness. We're all going way beyond our expiration date.
