Douglas Coupland Quotes

Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and graphic designer (born 1961)

Douglas Coupland (born December 30, 1961) is a Canadian fiction writer and cultural commentator. He is perhaps best known for the 1991 novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, which popularized the terms "Generation X" and "McJob". Most of Coupland's work explores the harsher realities of life for this generation, including intense media saturation, a lack of religious values and economic instability.

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Alternative Names: Douglas Campbell Coupland

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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?

The problem is, after a week of intense googling, we’ve started to burn out on knowing the answer to everything. God must feel that way all the time. I think people in the year 2020 are going to be nostalgic for the sensation of feeling clueless.

Hang on a second—you already have my old laptop. Why do you want my new drives so badly?
"Because my contract says I have to write a book, and it's much easier just to steal your life than to make something up."

Your own nature will triumph. We are all born with our natures... And I think back over my life and I realize that my own nature -the core me- essentially hasn't changed over all these years. When I wake up in the morning, for those first few moments before I remember where I am or when I am, I still feel the same way I did when I woke up at the age of five.

We are at the vanguard of adolescent protraction.

What surprises me about humanity is that in the end such a narrow range of plights defines our moral lives.

The only way to the top is killing and greed. Okay, I’m kidding. But killing helps.

You worry that if you lower your guard, even for one second, your whole world will disintegrate into chaos.

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.

You wilfully ignore the small, gentle observations in life which you know are the most important.

You don't believe magic is possible in lives lived within traditional boundaries.

People like that woman make it clear just how asinine it is to believe that human beings have some kind of in-built universal sense of goodness. These days I think that everybody's just one spit away from being a mall bomber.

You wait for fate to bring about the changes in life which you should be bringing about yourself.

Consensus Terrorism: The process that decides in-office attitudes and behavior.

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.