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a76c4b1
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If you don't change, then what's the point of anything happening to you? It'll still be happening to an unchanged person.
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Douglas Coupland |
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946d62d
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I saw doves and I thought they were rocks, but they were asleep. My breath made them stir, and they rocks took flight, the earth exploding... and my only thought was that I wanted you to see them, too.
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Douglas Coupland |
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b5ffac9
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Remember how, back in 1990, if you used a cellphone in public you looked like a total asshole? We're all assholes now.
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Douglas Coupland |
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500f6fb
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I used to care about how other people thought I led my life. But lately I've realized that most people are too preoccupied with their own lives to give anybody else even the scantiest of thoughts.
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Douglas Coupland |
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4aa1a9e
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What else? I also believe that if someone comes up behind you on the freeway and flashes their lights to get you to move into the slow lane, they deserve whatever punishment you dole out to them. I promptly slow down and drive at the same speed as the car beside me so that I can punish Speed Racer for his impertinence. Actually, it's not the impertinence I'm punishing him for, it's that he let other people know what he wanted. Speed Racer, ..
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Douglas Coupland |
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50abdc6
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You keep waiting for the moral of your life to become obvious, but it never does. Work, work, work: No moral. No plot. No eureka! Just production schedules and days. You might as well be living inside a photocopier. Your lives are all they're ever going to be.
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work
purpose-of-life
plot
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Douglas Coupland |
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945a572
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After my brush with the suicidal impulse, I listen with new ears to others when they speak on the subject. I think there are people who were born with that little door open, and they have to go through life knowing that they might jump through it at any moment.
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Douglas Coupland |
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6db3bfb
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As I'm never going to be old, I'm glad that I never lost my sense of wonder about the world, although I have a hunch it would have happened pretty soon. I loved the world, its beauty and bigness as well as its smallness.
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Douglas Coupland |
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8f174c7
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There is no shame in impulse.
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Douglas Coupland |
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3f8511c
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If he'd learned one thing while he'd been away, it was that loneliness is the most taboo subject in the world. Forget sex or politics or religion. Or even failure. Loneliness is what clears out a room.
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Douglas Coupland |
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cdd92dc
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I would like to fall in love again but my only hope is that love doesn't happen to me so often after this. I don't want to get so used to falling in love that i get curious to experience something more extreme - whatever that may be.
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Douglas Coupland |
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bc2b5e8
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I cry because the future has once again found its sparkle and has grown a million times larger. And I cry because I am ashamed of how badly I have treated the people I love-of how badly I behaved during my own personal Dark Ages-back before I had a future and someone who cared for me from above. It is like today the sky opened up and only now am I allowed to enter
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Douglas Coupland |
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6368581
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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.
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Douglas Coupland |
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6ef8bc7
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Now - here is my secret:
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Douglas Coupland |
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5d4eb32
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Beyond a certain age, sincerity ceases to feel pornographic.
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Douglas Coupland |
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2d17fda
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Life always kills you in the end, but first it prevents you from getting what you want.
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Douglas Coupland |
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66d16b9
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Do you remember how you felt at seventeen? I do and I don't (...) Imagine you came from outer space and someone showed you a butterfly and a caterpillar. Would you ever put the two of them together? That's me and my memories.
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memories
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Douglas Coupland |
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6339b5d
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Happy. And then I got afraid that it would vanish as quickly as it came. That it was accidental-- that I didn't deserve it. It's like this very, very nice car crash that never ends.
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Douglas Coupland |
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0dd9179
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Our conversations are never easy, but as I-we-get older, we are finding that our conversations must bespoken. A need burns inside us to share with others what we are feeling Beyond a certain age, sincerity ceases to feel pornographic. It is as though the coolness that marked out youth is itself a type of retrovirus that can only leave you feeling empty. Full of holes.
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Douglas Coupland |
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3ee085d
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Their talk was endless, compulsive, and indulgent, sometimes sounding like the remains of the English language after having been hashed over by nuclear war survivors for a few hundred years.
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Douglas Coupland |
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b2d79ce
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People who advocate simplicity have money in the bank; the money came first, not the simplicity.
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wealth
rich-man
money-quotes
rich-and-poor
wealthy
rich-people
simple
simplicity
rich
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Douglas Coupland |
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41f171f
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Lists only spell out the things that can be taken away from us by moths and rust and thieves. If something is valuable, don't put it in a list. Don't even say the words.
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Douglas Coupland |
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6c75031
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Letting go of randomness is one of the hardest decisions a person can make.
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Douglas Coupland |
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8925c95
|
Sometimes I think God is like weather - you may not like the weather, but it has nothing to do with you. You just happen to be there. Deal with it. Sadness and grief are part of being human and always will be.
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Douglas Coupland |
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d00f9e3
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Gore is nature's way of saying, "There are too many human beings on the planet, and I'm trying to rectify this any way I can. SARS didn't work, but trust me, I'm cooking up something better. In the interim, please kill lots of yourselves."
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Douglas Coupland |
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968dada
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Truth be told, John said, the one thing in this world I want more than anything else is a great big crowbar, to jimmy myself open and take whatever creature that's sitting inside and shake it clean like a rug and then rinse it in a cold, clear lake like up in Oregon, and then I want to put it under the sun to let it heal and dry and grow and sit and come to consciousness again with a clear and quiet mind.
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Douglas Coupland |
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33006dc
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Do you think we enjoy hearing about your brand-new million-dollar home when we can barely afford to eat Kraft Dinner sandwiches in our own grimy little shoe boxes and we're pushing thirty? A home you won in a genetic lottery, I might add, sheerly by dint of your having been born at the right time in history? You'd last about ten minutes if you were my age these days.
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generational-divide
generation-x
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Douglas Coupland |
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bb84729
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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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1c3ec18
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I think there is a Paris inside us all.
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Douglas Coupland |
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ec638a2
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There are a number of things a woman can tell about a man who is roughly twenty-nine years old, sitting in the cab of a pickup truck at 3:37 in the afternoon on a weekday, facing the Pacific, writing furiously on the back of pink invoice slips. Such a man may or may not be employed, but regardless, there is mystery there. If this man is with a dog, then that's good, because it means he's capable of forming relationships. But if the dog is a..
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Douglas Coupland |
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8e92e5c
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We'll go to a place that's quiet and dry and talk about precious things.
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Douglas Coupland |
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509ccbb
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Question: would I do it the same way all over again? Absolutely - because I learned something along the way. Most people don't learn things along the way. Or if they do, they conveniently forget those things when it suits their need. Most people, given a second chance, fuck it up completely. It's one of those laws of the universe that you can't shake. People, I have noticed, only seem to learn once they get their third chance - after losing..
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Douglas Coupland |
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6df6059
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At least there's nothing scary about him and hopefully he doesn't see anything scary in me. We go way back, to summer camp. We KNOW each other. People I don't know just make me want to say YIKES! I'll take history over mystery any day of the week.
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Douglas Coupland |
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9332630
|
LET'S JUST HOPE WE ACCIDENTALLY BUILD GOD.
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Douglas Coupland |
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915b8c3
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I ma trying to feel more well adjusted than I really am, which is, I guess, the human condition.
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Douglas Coupland |
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b94bb9d
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Beware of the corporate invasion of private memory.
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Douglas Coupland |
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f0b9144
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Negative? Moi? I think realistic might be a better word. You mean to tell me we can drive all the way here from L.A. and see maybe ten thousand square miles of shopping malls, and you don't have maybe just the weentsiest inkling that something, somewhere has gone very very cuckoo?
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Douglas Coupland |
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c6e7344
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most guys have about 73 calories of shopping energy, and once these calories are gone, they're gone for the day - if not the week - and can't be regenerated simply by having an Orange Julius at the Food Fair.
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shopping
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Douglas Coupland |
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7fdbb4a
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I was sick of wanting money. I was sick of being without a goal.
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Douglas Coupland |
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2c139f0
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You are paralyzed by the fact that cruelty is often amusing.
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Douglas Coupland |
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daed178
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Yet how often is it that we are rescued by a stranger, if ever at all? And how is it that our lives can become drained of the possibility of forgiveness and kindness - so drained that even one small act of mercy becomes a potent lifelong memory? How do our lives reach these points?
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Douglas Coupland |
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b7ef98f
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This was not a good idea coming home for Christmas. I'm too old. Years ago, coming back from schools or trips, I always expected some sort of new perspective or fresh insight about the family on returning. That doesn't happen anymore-the days of revelation about my parents, at least, are over... its time to move on. I think we'd all appreciate that.
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Douglas Coupland |
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8e24920
|
This is not ambition. This is desperation.
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Douglas Coupland |
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2cb4041
|
What's a bar bill but a surtax on reality?
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Douglas Coupland |