Douglas Coupland Quotes
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The modern economy isn't about the redistribution of wealth, it's about the redistribution of time.
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Workshops and seminars are basically financial speed dating for clueless people.
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I had a lot of really terrible advice early in my writing career and I cheesed off people without even knowing it, all the while thinking I was implementing good advice.
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Technology favors horrible people.
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I don't know how anyone gets anything done in cities. How can you live somewhere like London or New York, when there are 81 things to do every night? Awful. Give me solitude and space any time.
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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.
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TV didn't kill radio, it just added something new to the mix.
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The capacity for not feeling lonely can carry a very real price, that of feeling nothing at all.
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At what point in our lives do we stop blurring? When do we become crisp individuals? What must we do in order to end these fuzzy identities - to clarify just who it is we really are?
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I find it hard to believe that human beings are the crowning achievement of life on earth. Something better than us has to come along.
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Good-looking people with strong, fluoridated teeth get things handed to them on platters.
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If a building looks better under construction than it does when finished, then it's a failure.
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Everyone should have a tailor. David Wilkes, the guy who does my stuff, is like, 'Well you're a writer - do you want a special pen compartment or something?' Bespoke: That's the term you want to get out there.
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If someone decides to be a musician now, it means because there is no hope of money at the end of it, it means they really want to be a musician. And if someone is writing now, there is no hope for money at the end of it.
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If money is not maintained, it can collapse like a bridge along Interstate 5 and fixing it, even with determined politicians, will take ages, during which time God only knows how much human damage will occur.
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Only losers make decisions when things are bad. The time to rejig your life is the time when it's seemingly smooth.
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Historical Overdosing: to live in a period of time when too much seems to happen. Major symptoms include addiction to newspapers, magazines, and TV news broadcasts.
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People who advocate simplicity have money in the bank; the money came first, not the simplicity. (from inside the cover)
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I had a lot of really terrible advice early in my writing career, and I cheesed off people without even knowing it, all the while thinking I was implementing good advice. Well, what can you do about it? Next.
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There's nothing at the center of what we do.
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Before machines the only form of entertainment people really had was relationships.
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Sometimes the best lighting of all is a power failure.
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I'm a visual thinker. Research tells us that only 20 per cent of people think visually. So what about the other 80 per cent? Don't they think in pictures? I mean if you imagine washing and preparing potatoes you visualise the process, right?
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What surprises me about humanity is that in the end such a narrow range of plights defines our moral lives.