Douglas Coupland Quotes
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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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My father has never once asked me a question, any question. There's a freedom that came from that. It allowed me to create my own way of thinking.
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We decided that the French could never write user-friendly software because they're so rude.
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The thing about the end of the world is that not just the West collapses, the whole world does.
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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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Fashion only seems to make sense if it's rooted in some dimension of history or if it feels like a continuation of an idea.
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Sometimes I wonder if the world is too interesting and too boring at the same time.
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The whole point of Gen X was, and continues to be, a negation of being forced into Baby Boomerdom against one's will.
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My life is neither a disaster nor supernatural, yet it is an unlikely event.
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A bland smile is like a green light at an intersection, it feels good when you get one, but you forget it the moment you're past it.
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What is the one thing more than any other thing that makes one person different from any other person?
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Any passion to collect has some meaning behind it.
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Art was always my main focus; I fell into writing by accident in the 1980s, writing magazine articles to pay for my studio. I have to put myself into the position of writing; sometimes it doesn't work, and sometimes it works great.
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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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'Why are we drinking Zima? It’s beyond irony. It’s not funny or anything. It’s just gross. Why not just serve us jugs of Hitler’s piss instead?''Drinking Zima is something Douglas Coupland would make a character do.''To what end?''It’d be a device that would allow him to locate the characters in time and a specific sort of culture.'
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Our curse as humans is that we are trapped in time; our curse is that we are forced to interpret life as a series of events - a story - and when we can’t figure out what our particular story is, we feel lost somehow.
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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.
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Life need not be a story, but it does need to be an adventure.
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I can't switch time zones any more. London is one of my favourite places, but I'm always so zonked that I can't appreciate it. It's like a six-inch sheet of glass between me and Charing Cross Road.
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In the future, IKEA will become an ever more spiritual sanctuary. In the future, your dream life will increasingly look like Google street view. Everyone will be feeling the same way as you, and there's some comfort to be found there.
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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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Your brain forms roughly 10,000 new cells every day, but unless they hook up to preexisting cells with strong memories, they die. Serves them right.
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I don't know if it's a very smart idea to admire the living.
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I'm suspicious of places that look decorated. I can understand why people do it, but you see too many cushions or a piece of fabric hanging and it's, like, 'Ugh!' A good house with good art will always work, no matter what.