Douglas Coupland Quotes

I have this theory about smart people. If you're smart, you're either the only person in your family who's smart, or everybody in the family is smart. No in-between.
I considered this. "I think I come from the everybody's smart category. But they don't apply their smarts to… larger picture pursuits. That includes me."

If you’re an incredibly famous rich person who does more in one day than I do in a month, does your perception of time’s passing go slower or faster than it does for me?

Nobody has ever been happy in a job they obtained by first handing in a resumé.

TV and the Internet are good because they keep stupid people from spending too much time out in public.

Don’t you get an empty feeling in your soul when you have a blank to-do list?

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

People who advocate simplicity have money in the bank; the money came first, not the simplicity. (from inside the cover)

The heart of a man is like deep water.

I hear that God has a really bad haircut.

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

I was Cheryl Anway- that has to count for something.

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.

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.

If you want to get close to somebody, you have to tell him or her something intimate about yourself. They'll tell you something intimate in return, and if you keep this going, maybe you'll end up in love.

A thousand years ago this wouldn’t have been the case. If human beings had suddenly vanished a thousand years ago, the planet would have healed overnight with no damage. Maybe a few lumps where the pyramids stand. One hundred years ago—or even fifty years ago—the world would have healed itself just fine in the absence of people. But not now. We crossed the line. The only thing that can keep the planet turning smoothly now is human free will forged into effort. Nothing else. That’s why the world has seemed so large in the past few years, and time so screwy. It’s because Earth is now totally ours.