“If you write fiction, you have to love your characters. It's like your family. You don't have to like them, but you have to love them.”

Canadian visual artist and writer

Douglas Coupland is a Canadian visual artist and writer, known for his 1991 novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. Trained first as a sculptor, he became widely known through fiction rather than through the visual arts. Generation X brought him international attention and helped popularize the terms Generation X and McJob. He later published many books, including novels, short story collections, and essay collections, and also wrote as a columnist and contributor for periodicals such as the New York Times, the Financial Times, The Guardian, and Wired.