Douglas Coupland - People Quotes

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Nobody believes the identities we've made for ourselves. I feel like everybody in the world is fake now - as though people had true cores once, but hucked them away and replaced them with something more attractive but also hollow.

Douglas Coupland
I curled myself into a ball and cried quietly, doing that thing that only young people can do, namely, feeling sorry for myself. Once you're past thirty you lose that ability; instead of feeling sorry for yourself you turn bitter.

Douglas Coupland
I think of how people can betray me simply by not caring enough to hide the fact of how little they care.I think of how the person who needs the other person the least in a relationship is the stronger member.

Douglas Coupland
Earth was not built for six billion people all running around and being passionate about things. The world was built for about two million people foraging for roots and grubs.

Douglas Coupland
Sometimes I think the people to feel the saddest for are people who once knew what profoundness was, but who lost or became numb to the sensation of wonder – people who closed the door that leads us into the secret world –or who had the doors closed for them by time and neglect and decisions made in time of weakness

Douglas Coupland
Below a certain point, if you keep too quiet, people no longer see you as thoughtful or deep; they simply forget you.

Douglas Coupland
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.

Douglas Coupland
Workshops and seminars are basically financial speed dating for clueless people.

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

Douglas Coupland
You know, I really think that when God puts together families, he sticks his finger into the white pages and selects a group of people at random and then says to them all, 'Hey! You're going to spend the next seventy years together, even though you have nothing in common and don't even like each other. And, should you not feel yourself caring about any of this group of strangers, even for a second, you will just feel dreadful

Douglas Coupland
I cry because the future has once again found its sparkle and has grown a million times larger. And I cry because I am ashamed of how badly I have treated the people I love–of how badly I behaved during my own personal Dark Ages–back before I had a future and someone who cared for me from above. It is like today the sky opened up and only now am I allowed to enter

Douglas Coupland
Unhappy endings are just as important as happy endings. They're an efficient way of transmitting vital Darwinian information. Your brain needs them to make maps of the world, maps that let you know what sorts of people and situations to avoid.

Douglas Coupland
McJob: A low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, no-future job in the service sector. Frequently considered a satisfying career choice by people who have never held one.

Douglas Coupland
Here's my theory about meetings and life: the three things you can't fake are erections, competence and creativity. That's why meetings become toxic — they put uncreative people in a situation in which they have to be something they can never be. And the more effort they put into concealing their inabilities, the more toxic the meeting becomes.

Douglas Coupland