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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.
Douglas Coupland -
Aliens didn't come down to Earth and give us technology. We invented it ourselves. Therefore it can never be alienating; it can only be an expression of our humanity.
Douglas Coupland
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In Canada, we're happy to provide a safe haven for next-door neighbors in the middle of a marital dispute. And if anyone trips while crossing the border, we're happy to set their broken bones for free.
Douglas Coupland -
In a faraway land called 'pre-2000,' what Earthlings now call blogging was called 'keeping a diary.' It's hard work to do well. I tried doing it in the early 1990s but had to stop because I no longer had a life - instead I had this thing that generated anecdotes to go into my diary. The diary took over and I had to stop.
Douglas Coupland -
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 -
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.
Douglas Coupland -
I keep vampire hours, going to bed at 2 A.M. and waking up at about 10:30-11 A.M.
Douglas Coupland -
'Stupidity' defines the mental state wherein we acknowledge that we've never been smarter as individuals and yet somehow we've never felt stupider. We now collectively inhabit a state of stupidity.
Douglas Coupland
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Life need not be a story, but it does need to be an adventure.
Douglas Coupland -
I miss my pre-Internet brain, but that doesn't help anything. We can only go forward.
Douglas Coupland -
Eagles are seagulls with a good hairdo.
Douglas Coupland -
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.
Douglas Coupland -
Brazilification: The widening gulf between the rich and the poor and the accompanying disappearance of the middle classes.
Douglas Coupland -
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
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I'm starting to wonder if pop culture is in its dying days, because everyone is able to customize their own lives with the images they want to see and the words they want to read and the music they listen to. You don't have the broader trends like you used to.
Douglas Coupland -
God is what keeps us together after the love is gone.
Douglas Coupland -
It also allows you to look as though you're not particularly from the present, future or past, either.
Douglas Coupland -
You wait for fate to bring about the changes in life which you should be bringing about by yourself.
Douglas Coupland -
Her friends have become who they've become by default. Their dreams are forgotten, or were never formulated to begin with.
Douglas Coupland -
What's the point of being efficient if you're only leading an efficiently blank life?
Douglas Coupland
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Make your goals big and broad enough so that they never become answered prayers and boomerang to curse you.
Douglas Coupland -
We need to be around our families not because we have so many shared experiences to talk about, but instead because they know precisely which subjects to avoid.
Douglas Coupland -
I think as a species we're not designed to be able to think more than one year into the future - if that. Even trying to imagine one year from now makes most people feel like they've been given a huge boring chunk of homework that's too hard to do.
Douglas Coupland -
Ethan is annoyed with all of these dumb campaigns that indoctrinate millions of people into thinking they’re tough-guy free spirits when, in fact, there’s probably much to be said for following and, in any event, the food chain isn’t structured to encompass millions of non-followers.
Douglas Coupland