The Good Quote
Open menu
Quotes
Authors
Topics
More
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
Home
Authors
Doug Coupland
Canadian
Author
About the author
People will always choose more money over more sex.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#People
#Will
#Money
#Sex
Purchased experiences don't count.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
If cats were double the size they are now, they'd probably be illegal.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Now
#Cats
If you're not a tree hugger, then you're a what, a tree hater?
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
If you don't have a spiritual practice in place when times are good, you can't expect to suddenly develop one during a moment of crisis.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Practice
#Spiritual
#Crisis
If you don't change, then what's the point of anything happening to you?
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Change
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.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Want
#Now
#Hope
#End
#Writing
#Money
If our subconscious was attractive, we wouldn't have to bury it down deep within us.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Deep
If nothing else, we simply get used to being alive.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Nothing
#Being
If I think too much about all of those Chinese factories where all the stuff in a Wal-Mart is made, I get that woozy feeling you get when you see ducks covered in crude oil.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Feeling
#Oil
On TV people look at your hair and then they look at your skin, and then they look at your clothes, and by the time they're listening to what you're saying, you're off the screen.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Time
#People
#Saying
#Listening
#Clothes
#Hair
#Skin
If God drives a car, He'd drive a 1973 Ford LTD Brougham sedan with a claret-colored vinyl roof, with oxblood leather upholstery and an opera window.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#God
#Car
#Opera
In the future, torture will once again become the recreational sport of the rich.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Will
#Future
If a building looks better under construction than it does when finished, then it's a failure.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Building
#Failure
I've got 911 on speed dial.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
I want pills called September 10. You take one and your mind feels like the 11th never happened.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Want
#Mind
I think the killers get far too much attention.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Attention
I think that in the future, clocks won't say three o'clock anymore. They'll just get right to the point and rename three o'clock 'Pepsi.'
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Right
#Future
#Clocks
I like doing radio because it's so intimate. The moment people hear your voice, you're inside there heads, not only that, you're in there laying eggs.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#People
#Voice
I have trouble with seafood because it tastes like a dock.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Trouble
If human beings had genuine courage, they'd wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Day
#Courage
Lottery tickets are a surtax on desperation.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Desperation
Nothing very very good and nothing very very bad ever lasts for very very long.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Nothing
New York is a theme park for people with IQs over 108.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#People
Never loan a book to someone if you expect to get it back. Loaning books is the same as giving them away.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Books
#Giving
Nature is one great big wood-chipper. Sooner or later, everything shoots out the other end in a spray of blood, bones and hair.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#End
#Nature
#Hair
#Blood
#Wood
Most people have no idea how to politely answer a phone. The English do, and it's been their only major business advantage for the past two centuries.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#People
#Past
#Idea
#English
#Business
Most of us have only two or three genuinely interesting moments in our lives; the rest is filler.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Rest
#Moments
Men won't read any email from a woman that's over 200 words long.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Words
#Men
#Woman
If your life had lyrics, would they be any good?
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Life
Make your goals big and broad enough so that they never become answered prayers and boomerang to curse you.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Goals
In our heads we're all about 33 years old.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Years
#Old
Long lives aren't natural. We forget that senior citizens are as much an invention as toasters or penicillin.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Forget
#Invention
Life always kills you in the end, but first it prevents you from getting what you want.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Want
#Life
#End
#First
It's weird when people start sentences with 'frankly' - as if their other sentences don't count.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#People
It's very strange that most people don't care if their knowledge of their family history only goes back three generations.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#People
#Family
#History
#Knowledge
#Care
#Generations
It's difficult to speak with beautiful people. No matter how hard you try to pretend otherwise, you still want them to like you.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Want
#People
It also allows you to look as though you're not particularly from the present, future or past, either.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Past
#Present
#Future
Is there anything in the world more annoyingly creepy than an unspoken dress code?
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#World
#Dress
Human beings are the only animal that thinks they change who they are simply by moving to a different place. Birds migrate, but it's not quite the same thing.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Change
#Birds
Making eye contact with adults while dressed as a clown is risky.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Eye
Big companies are like marching bands. Even if half the band is playing random notes, it still sounds kind of like music. The concealment of failure is built into them.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Failure
#Music
Eagles are seagulls with a good hairdo.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Eagles
Depression is when you have lots of love, but no one's taking.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Love
#Depression
Clowns drink to blot out the ravages of terrifying children for a living.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Children
#Living
#Clowns
Cloning is great. If God made the original, then making copies should be fine.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#God
Christmas makes everything twice as sad.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Christmas
Canadians can easily 'pass for American' as long as we don't accidentally use metric measurements or apologize when hit by a car.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#American
#Car
The future and eternity are two entirely different things.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Future
#Eternity
Royalty is either going to do very well with cloning, or it's going to disappear completely.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Royalty
Sometimes failure isn't an opportunity in disguise, it's just you.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Failure
#Opportunity
#Disguise
Sometimes it feels as if everything in life is just something we haul into the grave.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Life
#Grave
Sometimes the best lighting of all is a power failure.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Failure
#Power
Star Trek characters never go shopping.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
Technology favors horrible people.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#People
#Technology
#Favors
Telling people they look relaxed makes them look relaxed.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#People
Quick. Name ten dead redheads.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Name
#Quick
You can't fake creativity, competence, or sexual arousal.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Creativity
#Competence
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.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#People
#Feeling
Workshops and seminars are basically financial speed dating for clueless people.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#People
#Dating
#Financial
You can never become rich unless you like rich people.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#People
Your brain forms roughly 10,000 new cells every day, but unless they hook up to preexisting cells with strong memories, they die. Serves them right.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Right
#Day
#Memories
Your body isn't just a body. It's an ecosystem.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Body
Your ability to rationalize your own bad deeds makes you believe that the whole world is as amoral as you are.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#World
#Ability
#Deeds
You wait for fate to bring about the changes in life which you should be bringing about by yourself.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Life
#Fate
You can't get mad at weather because weather's not about you. Apply that lesson to most other aspects of life.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Life
#Weather
You pretend to be more eccentric than you actually are because you fear you are an interchangeable cog.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Fear
Where does personality end and brain damage begin?
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#End
#Personality
Try not thinking of peeling an orange. Try not imagining the juice running down your fingers, the soft inner part of the peel. The smell. Try and you can't. The brain doesn't process negatives.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Thinking
#Running
You spend a much larger part of your life being old, not young.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Life
#Being
#Old
When we constantly ask for miracles, we're unraveling the fabric of the world. A world of continuous miracles would not be a world, it would be a cartoon.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Miracles
#World
When future archaeologists dig up the remains of California, they're going to find all of those gyms their scary-looking gym equipment, and they're going to assume that we were a culture obsessed with torture.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Culture
#Future
You can only fall in love six times in your life. Choose wisely.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Life
#Love
When Donald Duck traded his wings for arms, was he trading up or trading down?
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
Unhappiness is something we are never taught about; we are taught to expect happiness, but never a Plan B to use to use when the happiness doesn't arrive.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Happiness
#Unhappiness
We live in an era with no historical precedents. History is no longer useful as a tool in helping us understand current changes.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#History
#Precedents
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.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Talk
We want our idols to be dead because it makes death a much less scary place.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Want
#Death
#Idols
We're rapidly approaching a world comprised entirely of jail and shopping.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#World
When you crop the photo, you tell a lie.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Lie
What exactly is it that humans do that is specifically human? There has to be something. 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.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#People
We decided that the French could never write user-friendly software because they're so rude.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Software
What if God exists except it turns out he doesn't really like people very much?
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#God
#People
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.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#World
#Research
#Sense
#Value
#Irony
I find it hard to believe that human beings are the crowning achievement of life on earth. Something better than us has to come along.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Life
#Earth
#Achievement
Birds are a miracle because they prove to us there is a finer, simpler state of being which we may strive to attain.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Being
#May
#State
#Birds
Every single moment is a coincidence.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
Being asked what animal you'd like to be is a trick question; you're already an animal.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Being
#Question
Before machines the only form of entertainment people really had was relationships.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Relationships
#People
#Entertainment
#Machines
Americans are a quarter of a billion people who have almost nothing in common except for the fact they've been told they have lots in common.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#People
#Nothing
#Americans
#Fact
Adventure without risk is Disneyland.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Risk
#Adventure
A ring is a halo on your finger.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
A man in a bookstore buys a book on loneliness and every woman in the store hits on him. A woman buys a book on loneliness and the store clears out.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Man
#Woman
#Loneliness
A bland smile is like a green light at an intersection, it feels good when you get one, but you forget it the moment you're past it.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Forget
#Smile
#Past
#Light
Blame is just a lazy person's way of making sense of chaos.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Sense
#Blame
#Chaos
Flying dreams mean that you're doing the right thing with your life.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Right
#Life
#Dreams
#Flying
I think money is due for some sort of collapse. People are going to realize that money has a half-life, like radioactive elements.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#People
#Money
High school is such a shared experience in North American culture.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#American
#Culture
#Experience
#School
Handmade presents are scary because they reveal that you have too much free time.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Time
Good-looking people with strong, fluoridated teeth get things handed to them on platters.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#People
God is what keeps us together after the love is gone.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Love
#God
Gap clothing allows you to look like you're from nowhere and anywhere.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
Forget sex or politics or religion, loneliness is the subject that clears out a room.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Forget
#Religion
#Politics
#Sex
#Loneliness
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.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#People
#World
#Being
#Earth
#Running
Fondue sets, martini shakers and juicing machines: three things the world could live completely without.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#World
Every human being you see in the course of a day has a problem that's sucking up at least 70 percent of his or her radar.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Day
#Being
Florida isn't so much a place where one goes to reinvent oneself, as it is a place where one goes if one no longer wished to be found.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
Figure out what it is in life you don't do well, and then don't do it.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Life
Feeling unique is no indication of uniqueness.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Feeling
#Uniqueness
Fate is for losers.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Fate
Failure is authentic, and because it's authentic, it's real and genuine, and because of that, it's a pure state of being.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Being
#State
#Failure
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.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Past
#Being
#Dreams
#Pretty
#Age
Everybody has basically the same family, it's just reconfigured slightly differently from one to the next.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Family
I don't want any vegetables, thank you. I paid for the cow to eat them for me.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Want
Forget about being world famous, it's hard enough just getting the automatic doors at the supermarket to acknowledge our existence.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Forget
#World
#Being
#Famous
#Existence
There's a lot to be said for having a small manageable dream.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Dream
I know it's not cat food, but what exactly is it that they put inside of tinned ravioli?
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Food
The harder you try to become the opposite of your parents, the more quickly you become them.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Parents
The modern economy isn't about the redistribution of wealth, it's about the redistribution of time.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Time
#Wealth
#Economy
The person who needs the other person the least in a relationship is the stronger member.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Needs
The real killers in the business world aren't the ones who aim for the top, it's the ones who aim for two notches below the top.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#World
#Business
The time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Time
#Lonely
The capacity for not feeling lonely can carry a very real price, that of feeling nothing at all.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Nothing
#Feeling
#Lonely
There are three things we cry about in life, things that are lost, things that are found, and things that are magnificent.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Life
Ten commandments yet seven deadly sins: conflict?
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Conflict
There's much to be said for feeling numb. Time passes more quickly. You eat less, and because numbness encourages laziness, you do fewer things, good or bad, and the world's probably a better place for it.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Time
#World
#Feeling
#Laziness
There's nothing cure or funny or lovable about being cheap. It's a total turn-off.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Nothing
#Being
#Cure
#Funny
Thinking you're immortal is weirdly similar to being immortal.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Thinking
#Being
Tofu hot dogs are actually scarier than real hot dogs. It's like wanting the worst possible meat product without even the thrill of it actually being meat.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Being
#Dogs
Too much free time is certainly a monkey's paw in disguise. Most people can't handle a structureless life.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Time
#Life
#People
#Disguise
Once you establish a look, and once everybody recognizes that look as your look, you never have to think about fashion again.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Fashion
The universe hands you opportunities for a while, and if you don't take them, the universe says to itself, 'Oh I see, this person doesn't like opportunities' and stops giving them to you.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Universe
#Giving
Salad bars are like a restaurant's lungs. They soak up the impurities and bacteria in the environment, leaving you with much cleaner air to enjoy.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Environment
Once you see someone lose it, you can never look at them the same way again.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
One of the cruelest things you can do to another person is pretend you care about them more than you really do.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Care
Only losers make decisions when things are bad. The time to rejig your life is the time when it's seemingly smooth.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#Time
#Life
#Decisions
People are pretty forgiving when it comes to other people's families. The only family that ever horrifies you is your own.
Doug Coupland,
Canadian
Author
#People
#Family
#Pretty