Douglas Coupland

“Self-delusion is one of the funniest things there is.”

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

“Dimanchophobia:Fear of Sundays, not in a religious sense but rather, a condition that reflects fear of unstructured time. Also known as acalendrical anxiety. Not to be confused with didominicaphobia, or kyriakephobia, fear of the Lord's Day.Dimanchophobia is a mental condition created by modernism and industrialism. Dimanchophobes particularly dislike the period between Christmas and New Year's, when days of the week lose their significance and time blurs into a perpetual Sunday. Another way of expressing dimanchophobia might be "life in a world without calendars." A popular expression of this condition can be found in the pop song "Every Day is Like Sunday," by Morrissey, in which he describes walking on a beach after a nuclear way, when every day of the week now feels like Sunday.”

“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.”

“Make your goals big and broad enough so that they never become answered prayers and boomerang to curse you.”

“There are three things we cry about in life, things that are lost, things that are found, and things that are magnificent.”

“I don't think I see the world in terms of stupid or clever, but in terms of being able to get irony. There's some awful statistic about only 20 per cent of Americans being able to understand irony.”

“When you think about Twitter and you think what a dumb stupid throwaway technology, and then you have the Iranian elections and it actually saves the day - you can't prejudge technologies now because they have effects you may not have intended.”

“One of the cruelest things you can do to another person is pretend you care about them more than you really do.”

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

“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.”

“I love working out how things are made, which is why I have so many models of towers.”

“In the future, torture will once again become the recreational sport of the rich.”

“In Canada, we're happy to provide a safe haven for next-door neighbors in the middle of a marital dispute. And if anyone trips while crossing the border, we're happy to set their broken bones for free.”

“There used to be a tradition of the loveable rogue who would steal from the honour boxes in churches and buy a round of drinks with the money he snagged. And everyone would find him tremendously good company. But not any more.”

“In our heads we're all about 33 years old.”

“I worship teachers. They can't be paid enough. It depresses me that society sees them as somehow expendable.”

“We're rapidly approaching a world comprised entirely of jail and shopping.”

“The harder you try to become the opposite of your parents, the more quickly you become them.”

“You wait for fate to bring about the changes in life which you should be bringing about by yourself.”