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e4a0f6b
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Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life's cruelest irony.
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loneliness
life
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Douglas Coupland |
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565ed3a
|
And then I felt sad because I realized that once people are broken in certain ways, they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it's already happened.
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Douglas Coupland |
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f96b111
|
I don't deserve a soul, yet I still have one. I know because it hurts.
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religion
philosophy
soul
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Douglas Coupland |
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bb7a0df
|
TV and the Internet are good because they keep stupid people from spending too much time out in public.
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Douglas Coupland |
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c7a3138
|
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.
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fate
destiny
strength
inspirational
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Douglas Coupland |
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dee7a50
|
When you're young, you always feel that life hasn't yet begun--that "life" is always scheduled to begin next week, next month, next year, after the holidays--whenever. But then suddenly you're old and the scheduled life didn't arrive. You find yourself asking, 'Well then, exactly what was it I was having--that interlude--the scrambly madness--all that time I had before?"
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angst
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Douglas Coupland |
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20db98e
|
In the end, I think the relationships that survive in this world are the ones where two people can finish each other's sentences. Forget drama and torrid sex and the clash of opposites. Give me banter any day of the week.
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Douglas Coupland |
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9a27d72
|
The richness of the rain made me feel safe and protected; I have always considered the rain to be healing--a blanket--the comfort of a friend. Without at least some rain in any given day, or at least a cloud or two on the horizon, I feel overwhelmed by the information of sunlight and yearn for the vital, muffling gift of falling water.
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rain
pacific-northwest
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Douglas Coupland |
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dbaf136
|
Time ticks by; we grow older. Before we know it, too much time has passed and we've missed the chance to have had other people hurt us. To a younger me this sounded like luck; to an older me this sounds like a quiet tragedy.
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Douglas Coupland |
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7047f0b
|
Starved for affection, terrified of abandonment, I began to wonder if sex was really just an excuse to look deeply into another human being's eyes.
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Douglas Coupland |
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bf2a1df
|
My mind then wandered. I thought of this: I thought of how every day each of us experiences a few little moments that have just a bit more resonance than other moments--we hear a word that sticks in our mind--or maybe we have a small experience that pulls us out of ourselves, if only briefly--we share a hotel elevator with a bride in her veils, say, or a stranger gives us a piece of bread to feed to the mallard ducks in the lagoon; a small ..
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meaning_of_life
moments
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Douglas Coupland |
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df8618d
|
I think if human beings had genuine courage, they'd wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween. Wouldn't life be more interesting that way? And now that I think about it, why the heck don't they? Who made the rule that everybody has to dress like sheep 364 days of the year? Think of all the people you'd meet if they were in costume every day. People would be so much easier to talk to - like talking to dogs.
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people
halloween
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Douglas Coupland |
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4742f08
|
Here's my theory about meetings and life: the three things you can't fake are erections, competence and creativity.
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Douglas Coupland |
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d87962a
|
In periods of rapid personal change, we pass through life as though we are spellcast. We speak in sentences that end before finishing. We sleep heavily because we need to ask so many questions as we dream alone. We bump into others and feel bashful at recognizing souls so similar to ourselves.
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what-makes-us-who-we-are
souls
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Douglas Coupland |
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283e857
|
You know, I think the people I feel saddest for are the ones who once knew what profoundness was, but who lost or became numb to the sensation of wonder, who felt their emotions floating away and just didn't care. I guess that's what's scariest: not caring about the loss.
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loss
numbness
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Douglas Coupland |
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7a30302
|
All families are psychotic. Everybody has basically the same family - it's just reconfigured slightly different from one to the next.
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|
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Douglas Coupland |
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f0be627
|
Here's what I think: the five most unattractive traits in people are cheapness, clinginess, neediness, unwillingness to change and jealousy. Jealousy is the worst, and by far the hardest to conceal.
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Douglas Coupland |
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357ca75
|
Please stop putting quotes from Nietzsche at the end of your emails. Five years ago you were laughing your guts out over American Pie 2. What -- suddenly you've magically turned into Noam Chomsky?
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Douglas Coupland |
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dbb4a42
|
When someone tells you they've just bought a house, they might as well tell you they no longer have a personality. You can immediately assume so many things: that they're locked into jobs they hate; that they're broke; that they spend every night watching videos; that they're fifteen pounds overweight; that they no longer listen to new ideas. It's profoundly depressing.
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|
Douglas Coupland |
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a438e90
|
She thought about her life and how lost she'd felt for most of it. She thought about the way that all truths she'd been taught to consider valuable invariably conflicted with the world as it was actually lived. How could a person be so utterly lost, yet remain living?
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wisdom
|
Douglas Coupland |
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31fe21d
|
blame is just a lazy person's way of making sense of chaos.
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|
|
Douglas Coupland |
|
9b26bb5
|
I realized that once people are broken in certain ways they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one.
|
|
|
Douglas Coupland |
|
dbce4cc
|
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.
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Douglas Coupland |
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2601648
|
After you're dead and buried and floating around whatever place we go to, what's going to be your best memory of earth? What one moment for you defines what it's like to be alive on this planet. What's your takeaway? 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.
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Douglas Coupland |
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77a084d
|
Eroticize intelligence.
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|
Douglas Coupland |
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01eaa6a
|
maybe memories are like karaoke-where you realize up on the stage, with all those lyrics scrawling across the screen's bottom, and with everybody clapping at you, that you didn't know even half the lyrics to your all-time favourite song. Only afterwards, when someone else is up on stage humiliating themselves amid the clapping and laughing, do you realize that what you liiked most about your favourite song was precisely your ignorance of it..
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|
|
Douglas Coupland |
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00020c1
|
I didn't realize then that so much of being adult is reconciling ourselves with the awkwardness and strangeness of our own feelings. Youth is the time of life lived for some imaginary audience
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|
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Douglas Coupland |
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5d71f6d
|
So where do you start when you want to start your life again?
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|
Douglas Coupland |
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4456590
|
and when you meet someone and fall in love, and they fall in love with you, you ask them "Will you take my heart-- stains and all?" and they say "I will," and they ask you the same question and you say, "I will," too."
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Douglas Coupland |
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0325027
|
there are three things we cry for in life: things that are lost, things that are found, and things that are magnificent.
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|
Douglas Coupland |
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7805123
|
I think of how the person who needs the other person the least in a relationship is the stronger member.
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|
Douglas Coupland |
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8326d5f
|
I am aware that there is a world out there that functions without regard to me. There are wars and budgets and bombings and vast dimensions of wealth and greed and ambition and corruption. And yet I don't feel a part of that world, and I wouldn't know how to join if I tried.
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|
Douglas Coupland |
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f02469d
|
Dreams don't come true. Dreams die. Dreams get compromised. Dreams end up dealing meth in a booth at the back of the Olive Garden. Dreams choke to death on bay leaves. Dreams get spleen cancer.
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Douglas Coupland |
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011bf60
|
By the age of twenty, you know you're not going to be a rock star. By twenty-five, you know you're not going to be a dentist or any kind of professional. And by thirty, darkness starts moving in- you wonder if you're ever going to be fulfilled, let alone wealthy and successful. By thirty-five, you know, basically, what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life, and you become resigned to your fate... ...I mean, why do people live s..
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|
life
mid-life-crisis
quarter-life-crisis
fulfillment
|
Douglas Coupland |
|
e052adf
|
Everybody has a 'gripping stranger' in their lives, Andy, a stranger who unwittingly possesses a bizarre hold over you. Maybe it's the kid in cut-offs who mows your lawn or the woman wearing White Shoulders who stamps your book at the library--a stranger who, if you were to come home and find a message from them on your answering machine saying 'Drop everything. I love you. Come away with me now to Florida,' you'd follow them.
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love
|
Douglas Coupland |
|
cb6e6b7
|
A few years ago it dawned on me that everybody past a certain age ... pretty much constantly dreams of being able to escape from their lives. They don't want to be who they are any more. They want out. This list includes Thurston Howell the Third, Ann-Margret, the cat members of Rent, Vaclav Havel, space shuttle astronauts and Snuffleupagus. It's universal.
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humour
life
philosophy
|
Douglas Coupland |
|
48f57d3
|
Below a certain point, if you keep too quiet, people no longer see you as thoughtful or deep; they simply forget you.
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|
|
Douglas Coupland |
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8dba809
|
Destiny is what we work toward. The future doesn't exist yet. Fate is for losers!
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|
|
Douglas Coupland |
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6f01023
|
Jason once told me that eye contact is the most intimacy two people can have -- forget sex -- because the optic nerve is technically an extension of the brain, and when two people look into each other's eyes, it's brain-to-brain.
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|
Douglas Coupland |
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4276db8
|
Compromise is said to be the way of the world and yet I find myself feeling sick trying to accept what it has done to me.
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|
|
Douglas Coupland |
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90916a0
|
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.
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|
Douglas Coupland |
|
1119833
|
I think it takes an amazing amount of energy to convince oneself that the Forever Person isn't just around the corner. In the end I believe we never do convince ourselves. I know that I found it increasingly hard to maintain the pose of emotional self-sufficiency lying on my bed and sitting at my desk, watching the gulls cartwheeling in the clouds over the bridges, cradling myself in my own arms, breathing warm chocolate-and-vodka breath on..
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|
loneliness
love
melancholy
|
Douglas Coupland |
|
cc209a3
|
As the expression goes, we spend our youth attaining wealth, and our wealth attaining youth.
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|
|
Douglas Coupland |
|
88732d9
|
She says to me, but were we ever intimate? How intimate were we really? Sure, there were the ordinary familiarity-type things - our bodies, our bodily discharges and stains and seepages, an encyclopedic knowledge of each other's family grudges, knowledge of each other's early school yard slights, our dietary peccadilloes, our tv remote control channel-changing styles. And yet... And yet? And yet in the end did we ever really give each other..
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Douglas Coupland |