Douglas Coupland Quotes
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We really ought to give ourselves a collective pat on the back for doing as well as we have in a universe of constant media change and mutation.
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If our subconscious was attractive, we wouldn't have to bury it down deep within us.
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The urge to reincarnate while still alive is near universal.
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'What do lesbians have against capitalized letters?''Capitalization implies a hierarchy, that some letters are more special than others.'
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'Ethan, there has to be more to my life than this.''Why can't you just be happy as a shallow cartoon glyph of a human like everybody else here?'
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Time ticks by; we grow older. Before we know it, too much time has passed and we've missed the chance to have had people hurt us. To a younger me this sounded like luck; to an older me this sounded like a quiet tragedy.
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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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Lists only spell out the things that can be taken away from us by moths and rust and thieves. If something is valuable, don't put it in a list. Don't even say the words.
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Poverty Jet Set: A group of people given to chronic travelling at the expense of long-term job stability or a permenant residence. Tend to have doomed and extremely expensive phone call relationships with people named Serge or Ilyana. Tend to discuss frequent flyer programs at parties.
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Ask whatever challenges dead and thoughtless beliefs.
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Sometimes it feels as if everything in life is just something we haul into the grave.
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I think about how I think I know a person then 'poof!' I discover I only knew a cartoon version. Suddenly there's this fleshy, demanding, noisy creature in front of me, unknowable and just as lost as I am, and equally unable to remember that every soul in the world is hurting, not just themselves.
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I mean five thousand years ago people emerge out of nowhere - sproing!- with brains and everything and begin wrecking the planet. You'd think we'd give the issue a little more thought than we do.
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Those Catholics, they really nab you when you're young. They sear you. They sear you; they do.
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I miss the reference section at the library. I used to go there twice a week on missions. Now everywhere's a research library and I can't get an elitist kick from it any more.
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I'm agoraphobic. I can't deal with crowds.
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What exactly is it that humans do that is specifically human? There has to be something. How odd it is for billions of people to be alive, yet not one of them is really quite sure of what makes people people.
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'I have an idea. … If Ethan and Mark are so similar, we might as well arbitrarily assign them distinct personality traits. I know-Mark, from here on, you're to be called 'Evil Mark.''
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The thing about living in the 21st century is you can get to fortysomething and not have anyone major in your life die.
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I think social and moral disengagement is repugnant.
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I don't want dainty little moments of insight …
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Everybody past a certain age, regardless of how they look on the outside, pretty much constantly dreams of being able to escape from their lives.
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Is feeling nothing the inevitable result of believing in nothing? ...I thought it would be such a sick joke to have to remain alive for decades and not believe in or feel anything.
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Everyone wants to share what he or she has learned with someone who really cares.