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" I was always the youngest person in class, skinny, scrawny, no good at sports. I asserted myself by being smart. But then I got to college and started to get C's and D's. That was fantastic. I no longer had to be the smartest person in the room. "

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" I like being surrounded by good ideas. Every single time you walk past something you like, you get a blast of happy chemicals to the brain, and I like that. "

Douglas Coupland

Past

Walk

Time

" 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. "

" As a form of escapism, yearning for the 20th century is understandable, but in practice it would be horrible - sort of like going on a holiday promising yourself you could go without the Internet, only to crumble and walk in a daze to the local Internet cafe to gorge on connectivity. "

" You can never become rich unless you like rich people. "

Douglas Coupland

Become

You

" I'm always looking for things that are so incredibly present that they become invisible. "

" Nothing very very good and nothing very very bad ever lasts for very very long. "

" 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. "

" Too much free time is certainly a monkey's paw in disguise. Most people can't handle a structureless life. "

" Good-looking people with strong, fluoridated teeth get things handed to them on platters. "

" Depression is when you have lots of love, but no one's taking. "

" The way we experience history and time in all its forms shifted quite massively between 1989 and 2001 - to the point where contrivances like decades are now kind of silly. "

" I miss the silliness of the Nineties. What would society be like if 9/11 never happened? If that silliness was extended forever? "

Douglas Coupland

Society

Forever

" I was at Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver for four years, and I loved it. "

" Whatever happened to books? Suddenly everybody's talking about these 100-hour movies called 'Breaking Bad'. People are talking about TV the same way they used to talk about novels back in the 1980s. I like to think I hang out with some pretty smart people, but all they talk about is 'Breaking Bad.' "

" Bespoke tailoring: yes! I found this one pair of pants - they're Canali - and brought them into a tailor and said, 'Clone these, dammit.' They just do all the right things. I've got eight pairs in different colors and I never have to think about pants again. The only look otherwise that suits me is, like, the Professor from 'Gilligan's Island.' "

" You're smarter than TV. So what? "

Douglas Coupland

Smarter

Than

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The whole point of Gen X was, and continues to be, a negation of being forced into Baby Boomerdom against one's will. "

" I've had maybe 20 jobs, big and small, and I've never hated any of them. At the same time, the moment the learning curve flattened, I was out of there. "

" In a faraway land called 'pre-2000,' what Earthlings now call blogging was called 'keeping a diary.' It's hard work to do well. I tried doing it in the early 1990s but had to stop because I no longer had a life - instead I had this thing that generated anecdotes to go into my diary. The diary took over and I had to stop. "

" 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. "

" Flying dreams mean that you're doing the right thing with your life. "

" Characters in a book are very much like personalities divvied up within a family. In the end, it all averages out to a sort of overall averageness. "

" My own experience with being interviewed is mixed. I suppose they're a part of my job, and as I would like readers to connect with my books, I do them. I've also made many lifelong friends whom I first encountered as interviewers - as a writer, they're a terrific way to meet and add smart new people to one's life. "

" If money is not maintained, it can collapse like a bridge along Interstate 5 and fixing it, even with determined politicians, will take ages, during which time God only knows how much human damage will occur. "

" My father has never once asked me a question, any question. There's a freedom that came from that. It allowed me to create my own way of thinking. "

Douglas Coupland

Father

Freedom

" Handmade presents are scary because they reveal that you have too much free time. "

" People will always choose more money over more sex. "