Douglas Coupland
The time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself.Collection: Time
Before machines the only form of entertainment people really had was relationships.Collection: Relationship
Failure is authentic, and because it's authentic, it's real and genuine, and because of that, it's a pure state of being.Collection: Failure
Christmas makes everything twice as sad.Collection: Christmas
If cats were double the size they are now, they'd probably be illegal.Collection: Pet
Forget sex or politics or religion, loneliness is the subject that clears out a room.Collection: Politics
Handmade presents are scary because they reveal that you have too much free time.Collection: Birthday
The capacity for not feeling lonely can carry a very real price, that of feeling nothing at all.Collection: Alone
Workshops and seminars are basically financial speed dating for clueless people.Collection: Dating
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.Collection: Smile
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.Collection: Failure
Men won't read any email from a woman that's over 200 words long.Collection: Men
People are pretty forgiving when it comes to other people's families. The only family that ever horrifies you is your own.Collection: Family
It's very strange that most people don't care if their knowledge of their family history only goes back three generations.Collection: Family
I think that to acknowledge a new generation is to acknowledge some degree of obsolescence in yourself, and that is very hard to do and often comes with undeniable anger.Collection: Anger
I began doing writing projects and art and design projects to explore a new way of seeing Canada. Roots is one more way of continuing this exploration. I want to present a wide-open Canadian sense of color, adventure, communication and openness that defines our country.Collection: Communication
Sometimes failure isn't an opportunity in disguise, it's just you.Collection: Failure
If a building looks better under construction than it does when finished, then it's a failure.Collection: Failure
Forget about being world famous, it's hard enough just getting the automatic doors at the supermarket to acknowledge our existence.Collection: Famous
I was at Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver for four years, and I loved it.Collection: Design
Even when you take a holiday from technology, technology doesn't take a break from you.Collection: Technology
Sometimes the best lighting of all is a power failure.Collection: Failure
We were never supposed to live until 40. We were built to self-destruct at 30, whether from cancer or mental illness. We're all going way beyond our expiration date.Collection: Age
Technology favors horrible people.Collection: Technology
If human beings had genuine courage, they'd wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween.Collection: Courage
In the future, torture will once again become the recreational sport of the rich.
Gap clothing allows you to look like you're from nowhere and anywhere.
It also allows you to look as though you're not particularly from the present, future or past, either.
We live in an era with no historical precedents. History is no longer useful as a tool in helping us understand current changes.
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.
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.
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.
I like doing radio because it's so intimate. The moment people hear your voice, you're inside there heads, not only that, you're in there laying eggs.
Where does personality end and brain damage begin?
Purchased experiences don't count.
Flying dreams mean that you're doing the right thing with your life.
The future and eternity are two entirely different things.
Sometimes it feels as if everything in life is just something we haul into the grave.
If nothing else, we simply get used to being alive.
Life always kills you in the end, but first it prevents you from getting what you want.
I've got 911 on speed dial.
A man in a bookstore buys a book on loneliness and every woman in the store hits on him. A woman buys a book on loneliness and the store clears out.
Lottery tickets are a surtax on desperation.
A ring is a halo on your finger.
When we constantly ask for miracles, we're unraveling the fabric of the world. A world of continuous miracles would not be a world, it would be a cartoon.
I think money is due for some sort of collapse. People are going to realize that money has a half-life, like radioactive elements.
You can never become rich unless you like rich people.
People will always choose more money over more sex.
There's nothing cure or funny or lovable about being cheap. It's a total turn-off.
New York is a theme park for people with IQs over 108.