Doug Coupland Quotes

"If you're not a tree hugger, then you're a what, a tree hater?"
- Doug Coupland

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Crisis, Practice, Spiritual)

"If you don't change, then what's the point of anything happening to you?"
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Change)

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Money, Hope, End, Now, Want, Writing)

"If our subconscious was attractive, we wouldn't have to bury it down deep within us."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Deep)

"If nothing else, we simply get used to being alive."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Being, Nothing)

"If I think too much about all of those Chinese factories where all the stuff in a Wal-Mart is made, I get that woozy feeling you get when you see ducks covered in crude oil."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Feeling, Oil)

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Time, People, Clothes, Hair, Listening, Saying, Skin)

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: God, Car, Opera)

"In the future, torture will once again become the recreational sport of the rich."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Future, Will)

"If a building looks better under construction than it does when finished, then it's a failure."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Failure, Building)

"I've got 911 on speed dial."
- Doug Coupland

"I want pills called September 10. You take one and your mind feels like the 11th never happened."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Mind, Want)

"I think the killers get far too much attention."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Attention)

"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.'"
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Clocks, Future, Right)

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: People, Voice)

"I have trouble with seafood because it tastes like a dock."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Trouble)

"If human beings had genuine courage, they'd wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Courage, Day)

"Lottery tickets are a surtax on desperation."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Desperation)

"Nothing very very good and nothing very very bad ever lasts for very very long."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Nothing)

"New York is a theme park for people with IQs over 108."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: People)

"Never loan a book to someone if you expect to get it back. Loaning books is the same as giving them away."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Books, Giving)

"Nature is one great big wood-chipper. Sooner or later, everything shoots out the other end in a spray of blood, bones and hair."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Nature, Blood, End, Hair, Wood)

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Business, People, Idea, English, Past)

"Most of us have only two or three genuinely interesting moments in our lives; the rest is filler."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Moments, Rest)

"Men won't read any email from a woman that's over 200 words long."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Men, Woman, Words)

"If your life had lyrics, would they be any good?"
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Life)

"Make your goals big and broad enough so that they never become answered prayers and boomerang to curse you."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Goals)

"In our heads we're all about 33 years old."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Old, Years)

"Long lives aren't natural. We forget that senior citizens are as much an invention as toasters or penicillin."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Forget, Invention)

"Life always kills you in the end, but first it prevents you from getting what you want."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Life, End, First, Want)

"It's weird when people start sentences with 'frankly' - as if their other sentences don't count."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: People)

"It's very strange that most people don't care if their knowledge of their family history only goes back three generations."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Family, History, People, Knowledge, Care, Generations)

"It's difficult to speak with beautiful people. No matter how hard you try to pretend otherwise, you still want them to like you."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: People, Want)

"It also allows you to look as though you're not particularly from the present, future or past, either."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Future, Past, Present)

"Is there anything in the world more annoyingly creepy than an unspoken dress code?"
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Dress, World)

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Change, Birds)

"Making eye contact with adults while dressed as a clown is risky."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Eye)

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Music, Failure)

"Eagles are seagulls with a good hairdo."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Eagles)

"Depression is when you have lots of love, but no one's taking."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Love, Depression)

"Clowns drink to blot out the ravages of terrifying children for a living."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Children, Clowns, Living)

"Cloning is great. If God made the original, then making copies should be fine."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: God)

"Christmas makes everything twice as sad."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Christmas)

"Canadians can easily 'pass for American' as long as we don't accidentally use metric measurements or apologize when hit by a car."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Car, American)

"Brain research tells us that only twenty percent of human beings have a sense of irony, which means that eighty percent of the world takes everything at face value."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Irony, Research, Sense, Value, World)

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Life, Achievement, Earth)

"Birds are a miracle because they prove to us there is a finer, simpler state of being which we may strive to attain."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Being, Birds, May, State)

"Every single moment is a coincidence."
- Doug Coupland

"Being asked what animal you'd like to be is a trick question; you're already an animal."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Being, Question)

"Before machines the only form of entertainment people really had was relationships."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: People, Entertainment, Machines, Relationships)

"Americans are a quarter of a billion people who have almost nothing in common except for the fact they've been told they have lots in common."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: People, Americans, Fact, Nothing)

"Adventure without risk is Disneyland."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Adventure, Risk)

"A ring is a halo on your finger."
- Doug Coupland

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Loneliness, Man, Woman)

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Forget, Light, Past, Smile)

"Blame is just a lazy person's way of making sense of chaos."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Blame, Chaos, Sense)

"Flying dreams mean that you're doing the right thing with your life."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Dreams, Life, Flying, Right)

"I think money is due for some sort of collapse. People are going to realize that money has a half-life, like radioactive elements."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Money, People)

"High school is such a shared experience in North American culture."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Experience, American, Culture, School)

"Handmade presents are scary because they reveal that you have too much free time."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Time)

"Good-looking people with strong, fluoridated teeth get things handed to them on platters."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: People)

"God is what keeps us together after the love is gone."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Love, God)

"Gap clothing allows you to look like you're from nowhere and anywhere."
- Doug Coupland

"Forget sex or politics or religion, loneliness is the subject that clears out a room."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Politics, Religion, Sex, Forget, Loneliness)

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: People, Being, Earth, Running, World)

"Fondue sets, martini shakers and juicing machines: three things the world could live completely without."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: World)

"Every human being you see in the course of a day has a problem that's sucking up at least 70 percent of his or her radar."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Being, Day)

"Florida isn't so much a place where one goes to reinvent oneself, as it is a place where one goes if one no longer wished to be found."
- Doug Coupland

"Figure out what it is in life you don't do well, and then don't do it."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Life)

"Feeling unique is no indication of uniqueness."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Feeling, Uniqueness)

"Fate is for losers."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Fate)

"Failure is authentic, and because it's authentic, it's real and genuine, and because of that, it's a pure state of being."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Failure, Being, State)

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Dreams, Age, Being, Past, Pretty)

"Everybody has basically the same family, it's just reconfigured slightly differently from one to the next."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Family)

"I don't want any vegetables, thank you. I paid for the cow to eat them for me."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Want)

"Forget about being world famous, it's hard enough just getting the automatic doors at the supermarket to acknowledge our existence."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Being, Existence, Famous, Forget, World)

"There's a lot to be said for having a small manageable dream."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Dream)

"I know it's not cat food, but what exactly is it that they put inside of tinned ravioli?"
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Food)

"The harder you try to become the opposite of your parents, the more quickly you become them."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Parents)

"The modern economy isn't about the redistribution of wealth, it's about the redistribution of time."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Time, Wealth, Economy)

"The person who needs the other person the least in a relationship is the stronger member."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Needs)

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Business, World)

"The time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Time, Lonely)

"The capacity for not feeling lonely can carry a very real price, that of feeling nothing at all."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Feeling, Lonely, Nothing)

"There are three things we cry about in life, things that are lost, things that are found, and things that are magnificent."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Life)

"Ten commandments yet seven deadly sins: conflict?"
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Conflict)

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Time, Feeling, Laziness, World)

"There's nothing cure or funny or lovable about being cheap. It's a total turn-off."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Funny, Being, Cure, Nothing)

"Thinking you're immortal is weirdly similar to being immortal."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Being, Thinking)

"Tofu hot dogs are actually scarier than real hot dogs. It's like wanting the worst possible meat product without even the thrill of it actually being meat."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Being, Dogs)

"Too much free time is certainly a monkey's paw in disguise. Most people can't handle a structureless life."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Life, Time, People, Disguise)

"Once you establish a look, and once everybody recognizes that look as your look, you never have to think about fashion again."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Fashion)

"The universe hands you opportunities for a while, and if you don't take them, the universe says to itself, 'Oh I see, this person doesn't like opportunities' and stops giving them to you."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Giving, Universe)

"Salad bars are like a restaurant's lungs. They soak up the impurities and bacteria in the environment, leaving you with much cleaner air to enjoy."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Environment)

"Once you see someone lose it, you can never look at them the same way again."
- Doug Coupland

"One of the cruelest things you can do to another person is pretend you care about them more than you really do."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Care)

"Only losers make decisions when things are bad. The time to rejig your life is the time when it's seemingly smooth."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Life, Time, Decisions)

"People are pretty forgiving when it comes to other people's families. The only family that ever horrifies you is your own."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Family, People, Pretty)

"People will always choose more money over more sex."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Money, Sex, People, Will)

"Purchased experiences don't count."
- Doug Coupland

"The future and eternity are two entirely different things."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Eternity, Future)

"Royalty is either going to do very well with cloning, or it's going to disappear completely."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Royalty)

"Sometimes failure isn't an opportunity in disguise, it's just you."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Opportunity, Failure, Disguise)

"Sometimes it feels as if everything in life is just something we haul into the grave."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Life, Grave)

"Sometimes the best lighting of all is a power failure."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Power, Failure)

"Star Trek characters never go shopping."
- Doug Coupland

"Technology favors horrible people."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Technology, People, Favors)

"Telling people they look relaxed makes them look relaxed."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: People)

"Quick. Name ten dead redheads."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Name, Quick)

"You can't fake creativity, competence, or sexual arousal."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Creativity, Competence)

"With Google I'm starting to burn out on knowing the answer to everything. People in the year 2020 are going to be nostalgic for the sensation of feeling clueless."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: People, Feeling)

"Workshops and seminars are basically financial speed dating for clueless people."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Dating, People, Financial)

"You can never become rich unless you like rich people."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: People)

"Your brain forms roughly 10,000 new cells every day, but unless they hook up to preexisting cells with strong memories, they die. Serves them right."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Day, Memories, Right)

"Your body isn't just a body. It's an ecosystem."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Body)

"Your ability to rationalize your own bad deeds makes you believe that the whole world is as amoral as you are."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Ability, Deeds, World)

"You wait for fate to bring about the changes in life which you should be bringing about by yourself."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Life, Fate)

"You can't get mad at weather because weather's not about you. Apply that lesson to most other aspects of life."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Life, Weather)

"You pretend to be more eccentric than you actually are because you fear you are an interchangeable cog."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Fear)

"Where does personality end and brain damage begin?"
- Doug Coupland
(Related: End, Personality)

"Try not thinking of peeling an orange. Try not imagining the juice running down your fingers, the soft inner part of the peel. The smell. Try and you can't. The brain doesn't process negatives."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Running, Thinking)

"You spend a much larger part of your life being old, not young."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Life, Being, Old)

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Miracles, World)

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Culture, Future)

"You can only fall in love six times in your life. Choose wisely."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Love, Life)

"When Donald Duck traded his wings for arms, was he trading up or trading down?"
- Doug Coupland

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Happiness, Unhappiness)

"We live in an era with no historical precedents. History is no longer useful as a tool in helping us understand current changes."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: History, Precedents)

"We need to be around our families not because we have so many shared experiences to talk about, but instead because they know precisely which subjects to avoid."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Talk)

"We want our idols to be dead because it makes death a much less scary place."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Death, Idols, Want)

"We're rapidly approaching a world comprised entirely of jail and shopping."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: World)

"When you crop the photo, you tell a lie."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Lie)

"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."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: People)

"We decided that the French could never write user-friendly software because they're so rude."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Software)

"What if God exists except it turns out he doesn't really like people very much?"
- Doug Coupland
(Related: God, People)