Quotes from Douglas Coupland

Inasmuch as I am a spiritual man, I do believe in God - I think that He created an order for the world; I believe that, in constantly bombarding Him with requests for miracles, we're also asking that He unravel the fabric of the world. A world of continuous miracles would be a cartoon, not a world.

My arm draped her shoulder; we both felt safe, as if we were a complete solar system unto ourselves, dangling in the sky, warm heated planets inside a universe of stars. -Richard

He felt intact but worthless, like a chocolate rabbit selling for 75 percent off the month after Easter.

I'm an adult. Discipline me and I'll bury you alive. - Roger

I don't want to lose you. I can't imagine ever feeling this strongly about anything or anybody ever again. This was unexpected, my soul's connection to you. You stole my loneliness No one knows that I was wishing for you, a thief, to enter my house of autonomy, that I had locked my doors but my Windows were open, hoping, but not believing, you would enter.

What one moment from you defines what it's like to be alive on this planet. What's your takeaway?'' There is silence. Tobias doesn't get her point, and frankly, neither do I. She continues: ''Fake yuppie experiences that you had to spend money on, like white water rafting or elephant rides in Thailand don't count. I want to hear some small moment from your life that proves you're really alive.

Sometimes I think the people to feel the saddest for are people who are unable to connect with the profound—people such as my boring brother-in-law, a hearty type so concerned with normality and fitting in that he eliminates any possibility of uniqueness for himself and his own personality. I wonder if some day, when he is older, he will wake up and the deeper part of him will realize that he has never allowed himself to truly exist, and he will cry with regret and shame and grief.

The world was so unbearably pretty, and it continued being so all the way down the mountain to school. I felt slightly high because of the beauty, and the inside of my head tickled. I wondered if this is how artists go through life, with all of its sensations tickling their craniums like a peacock feather..

one of the biggest indicators for success in life is having a few crazy relatives. So long as you get only some of the crazy genes, you don't end up crazy; you merely end up different. And it's that difference that gives you an edge, that makes you successfull.

I wondered what it was to pray, because it was something I have never learned to do, and all I remember is falling.

Our curse as humans is that we are trapped in time; our curse is that we are forced to interpret life as a sequence of events - a story - and when we can't figure out what our particular story is, we feel lost somehow.

I like to go beach-combing, and I like to find interestingly shaped rocks. When I really get into the groove I start finding beautiful rocks everywhere, until I discover that all of the rocks on the beach are beautiful. And so I try to find beauty even in the smallest moments, because beauty is something that can grow if you let it.

Youth is the time of life lived for some imaginary audience.

I believe that what separates humanity from everything else in this world – spaghetti, binder paper, deep-sea creatures, edelweiss, and Mount McKinley – is that humanity alone has the capacity at any given moment to commit all possible sins." --Hey Nostradamus!

But then a bumblebee bumbled above us and it stole our attention the way flying things can. Mom... Dad... I'm okay. I am not being starved, or beaten, or unnecessarily frightened.

The world is a glorious place, and filled with so many unexpected moments that I'd get lumps in my throat, as though I were watching a bride walk down the aisle - moments as eternal and full of love as the lifting of veils, the saying of vows and the moment of the first wedded kiss.

As brothers and sister we knew instinctively that if we were going to stand in darkness, best we stand in a darkness we had made ourselves.

What is the search for the next great compelling application but a search for the human identity?

This place is like some cosmic dream crusher. All you can get out of a place like this is a creepy little tingle that lets you know your kid is never going to be anything more than a customer-that the whole world is being turned into casino.

How did society ever function without you, little Sharpies? Your nibs have the precise amount of give to create a line quality with character, yet not so much character as to be smushy. Thank you, little pens.

I used the phrase 'a certain age.' What I mean by this is the age people are in their heads. It's usually thirty to thirty-four. Nobody is forty in their head. When it comes to your internal age, chin wattles and relentless liver spots mean nothing.

If somebody wants to run for office, they had better to explain why they want to run for office. Wanting to be a candidate seems, in itself, reason for exclusion.

I broke out into a sweat and the worlds of Rilke, the poet, entered my brain -- his notion that we are all of us born with a letter inside us, and that only if we are true to ourselves, may we be allowed to read it before we die.

Susan, nonetheless, wanted to know why she was having such a dating problem. Dusty said, I think your problem is that you think everyone else is a freak except you, but everybody's a freak- you included- and once you learn that, the World of Dating is yours.