Douglas Coupland Quotes
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We live in an era with no historical precedents. History is no longer useful as a tool in helping us understand current changes.
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On TV people look at your hair and then they look at your skin, and then they look at your clothes, and by the time they're listening to what you're saying, you're off the screen.
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There used to be a tradition of the loveable rogue who would steal from the honour boxes in churches and buy a round of drinks with the money he snagged. And everyone would find him tremendously good company. But not any more.
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Birds are a miracle because they prove to us there is a finer, simpler state of being which we may strive to attain.
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Adventure without risk is Disneyland.
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Feeling unique is no indication of uniqueness.
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'A girl can’t control who will and who won’t fall in love with her, Ethan. And sometimes, when a nuisance person falls in love with you, it can be awfully… awkward.'
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Most time capsules, when they're unearthed, are really awful. There's nothing good in them.
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Mediums change you by their very existence. They do this on fundamental levels because they force you to favour certain parts of your brain over others.
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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.
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I get verklempt if I see a vintage TI-30 or TI-54 calculator. But I don't think I'd want to use one.
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Much of what we now consider 'personality' will be explained away as structural and chemical functions of the brain.
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When future archaeologists dig up the remains of California, they're going to find all of those gyms their scary-looking gym equipment, and they're going to assume that we were a culture obsessed with torture.
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Failure is authentic, and because it's authentic, it's real and genuine, and because of that, it's a pure state of being.
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If you waste five minutes of time a day, over the course of a year that adds up to one full work day. Think of five wasted minutes as a slow-release holiday drug. Savour it.
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The heart of a man is like deep water.
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When you think about Twitter and you think what a dumb stupid throwaway technology, and then you have the Iranian elections and it actually saves the day - you can't prejudge technologies now because they have effects you may not have intended.
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Vaccinated Time Travel: To fantasize about traveling backward in time, but only with proper vaccinations.
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I don't know if it's a very smart idea to admire the living.
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Money isn't money anymore. Time doesn't feel like time anymore. Your sense of community, it's evaporated, too, or it's turned into something you visit at 2 A.M. on a website.
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If you have a great idea, you should be able to communicate it as well. It's like the sound of one hand clapping. You have a great idea but aren't able to express it - well, how great was the idea?
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Being alive is just a brief technicality. (p. 167)
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The person who needs the other person the least in a relationship is the stronger member.
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When you're young you always feel that life hasn't yet begun...But then suddenly you're old and the scheduled life didn't arrive.