Doug Coupland

• "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.“
• "The time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself.“
• "The capacity for not feeling lonely can carry a very real price, that of feeling nothing at all.“
• "Sometimes the best lighting of all is a power failure.“
• "Handmade presents are scary because they reveal that you have too much free time.“
• "Most people have no idea how to politely answer a phone. The English do, and it's been their only major business advantage for the past two centuries.“
• "The real killers in the business world aren't the ones who aim for the top, it's the ones who aim for two notches below the top.“
• "Canadians can easily 'pass for American' as long as we don't accidentally use metric measurements or apologize when hit by a car.“
• "If God drives a car, He'd drive a 1973 Ford LTD Brougham sedan with a claret-colored vinyl roof, with oxblood leather upholstery and an opera window.“
• "If you don't change, then what's the point of anything happening to you?“
• "Human beings are the only animal that thinks they change who they are simply by moving to a different place. Birds migrate, but it's not quite the same thing.“
• "If human beings had genuine courage, they'd wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween.“
• "Workshops and seminars are basically financial speed dating for clueless people.“
• "We want our idols to be dead because it makes death a much less scary place.“
• "Flying dreams mean that you're doing the right thing with your life.“
• "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.“
• "High school is such a shared experience in North American culture.“
• "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.“
• "Sometimes failure isn't an opportunity in disguise, it's just you.“
• "Failure is authentic, and because it's authentic, it's real and genuine, and because of that, it's a pure state of being.“
• "If a building looks better under construction than it does when finished, then it's a failure.“
• "Sometimes the best lighting of all is a power failure.“
• "People are pretty forgiving when it comes to other people's families. The only family that ever horrifies you is your own.“
• "It's very strange that most people don't care if their knowledge of their family history only goes back three generations.“
• "Everybody has basically the same family, it's just reconfigured slightly differently from one to the next.“
• "Forget about being world famous, it's hard enough just getting the automatic doors at the supermarket to acknowledge our existence.“
• "You pretend to be more eccentric than you actually are because you fear you are an interchangeable cog.“
• "I know it's not cat food, but what exactly is it that they put inside of tinned ravioli?“
• "There's nothing cure or funny or lovable about being cheap. It's a total turn-off.“
• "In the future, torture will once again become the recreational sport of the rich.“
• "I think that in the future, clocks won't say three o'clock anymore. They'll just get right to the point and rename three o'clock 'Pepsi.'“
• "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.“
• "It also allows you to look as though you're not particularly from the present, future or past, either.“
• "The future and eternity are two entirely different things.“
• "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.“
• "If you don't have a spiritual practice in place when times are good, you can't expect to suddenly develop one during a moment of crisis.“
• "Unhappiness is something we are never taught about we are taught to expect happiness, but never a Plan B to use to use when the happiness doesn't arrive.“
• "It's very strange that most people don't care if their knowledge of their family history only goes back three generations.“
• "We live in an era with no historical precedents. History is no longer useful as a tool in helping us understand current changes.“
• "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.“
• "It's very strange that most people don't care if their knowledge of their family history only goes back three generations.“
• "Depression is when you have lots of love, but no one's taking.“
• "Men won't read any email from a woman that's over 200 words long.“
• "People will always choose more money over more sex.“
• "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.“
• "I think money is due for some sort of collapse. People are going to realize that money has a half-life, like radioactive elements.“
• "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.“
• "Nature is one great big wood-chipper. Sooner or later, everything shoots out the other end in a spray of blood, bones and hair.“
• "If cats were double the size they are now, they'd probably be illegal.“
• "Forget sex or politics or religion, loneliness is the subject that clears out a room.“
• "Sometimes the best lighting of all is a power failure.“
• "Before machines the only form of entertainment people really had was relationships.“
• "The person who needs the other person the least in a relationship is the stronger member.“
• "Forget sex or politics or religion, loneliness is the subject that clears out a room.“
• "Christmas makes everything twice as sad.“
• "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.“
• "Technology favors horrible people.“
• "The time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself.“
• "There's much to be said for feeling numb. Time passes more quickly. You eat less, and because numbness encourages laziness, you do fewer things, good or bad, and the world's probably a better place for it.“
• "Christmas makes everything twice as sad.“

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