Douglas Coupland
Douglas Coupland
Douglas Coupland OC OBCis a Canadian novelist and artist. His fiction is complemented by recognized works in design and visual art arising from his early formal training. His first novel, the 1991 international bestseller Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, popularized terms such as "McJob" and "Generation X". He has published thirteen novels, two collections of short stories, seven non-fiction books, and a number of dramatic works and screenplays for film and television. A specific feature of Coupland's novels...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth30 December 1961
CountryCanada
We are changed souls; we don't look at things the same way anymore. For there was a time when we expected the worst. But then the worst happened, did it not? And so we will never be surprised again.
A few years ago it dawned on me that 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.
If you don't change, then what's the point of anything happening to you? It'll still be happening to an unchanged person.
I thought about 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. The only activities I could think of that humans do that have no animal equivalent were smoking, body-building and writing. That's not much, considering how special we seem to think we are.
Below a certain point, if you keep too quiet, people no longer see you as thoughtful or deep; they simply forget you.
It's starts out young- you try not be different just to survive- you try to be just like everyone else- anonymity becomes reflexive- and then one day you wake up and you've become all those other people- the others- the something you aren't. And you wonder if you can ever be what it is you really are. Or you wonder if it's too late to find out.
Remember how, back in 1990, if you used a cellphone in public you looked like a total asshole? We're all assholes now.
HISTORICAL SLUMMING: the act of visiting locations such as diners, smokestack industrial sites, rural villageslocations where time appears to have been frozen many years backso as to experience relief when one returns back to'the present'.
Vaccinated Time Travel: To fantasize about traveling backward in time, but only with proper vaccinations.
Every single moment is a coincidence.
Wilcox Fate is for losers.
If human beings had genuine courage, they'd wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween.
Handmade presents are scary because they reveal that you have too much free time.
Never loan a book to someone if you expect to get it back. Loaning books is the same as giving them away.