“TV and the Internet are good because they keep stupid people from spending too much time out in public.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from JPod
“Here's my theory about meetings and life: the three things you can't fake are erections, competence and creativity.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from JPod
“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?”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from JPod
“Remember how, back in 1990, if you used a cellphone in public you looked like a total asshole? We're all assholes now.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from JPod
“Hasn't it been a long time since you had a flying dream?”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from JPod
“I think computers ought to have a key called I'M DRUNK, and when you push it, it prevents you from sending email for twelve hours.
I've got another one: a key called FUCK OFF. You press it every time your computer does something annoying -- in turn this would somehow force your computer to experience pain. And if you pushed SHIFT/FUCK OFF, you'd end up with FUCK OFF AND DIE, the computer equivalent of a razor being raked across your nipples.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from JPod
“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.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from JPod
“You know what the best thing is about the end of the day? Tomorrow, it starts all over again.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from JPod
“The only way to the top is killing and greed. Okay, I’m kidding. But killing helps.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from JPod
“Kaitlin said, "I'm so sick of that 'Greatest Generation' crap. We finally drove a silver nail through the heart of Generation X, only to have this new monster rear its head. And I'm soooooo sick of Tom Hanks looking earnest all the time. They should make a Tom Hanks movie where Tom kills off Greatest Generation figureheads one by one."
Bree arrived on cue: "And then he starts killing other generations. He becomes this supernova of hate--all he wants to do is destroy."
"Hate clings to him like a rich, lathery shampoo. His lungs secrete it like anthrax foam."
Mom lost it. "Stop it! All of you! Tom Hanks is a fine actor who would never hurt anybody. At least not onscreen."
I thought, 'Hey, didn't Tom Hanks mow down half of Chicago in "Road to Perdition?"' Well, whatever.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from JPod
“I'm going to see Princess Mononoke tonight at the Ridge — and you're coming with me.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from JPod
“After playing Halo 2 for 3 hours, I went out and mowed down a Red Cross blood bank, raped anything with a pulse, and trashed the local mall. Then I toasted the gods of destruction with a goblet of blood stolen from a Girl Guide's body.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from JPod
“Ho chiesto a Kaitlin qualcosa sull'ironia ed è saltato fuori che solo il venti per cento degli esseri umani possiede il senso dell'ironia - il che significa che l'ottanta per cento del pianeta prende tutto seriamente. Non riesco a immaginare qualcosa di peggio. Okay, forse si, ci riesco, ma immaginate di leggere il giornale del mattino credendo che sia tutto vero, in qualche misura.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from JPod
“Statemi a sentire: il lunedì fa schifo perchè sei arrabbiato per non aver potuto dormire fino a tardi, inoltre è anche il giorno in cui avviene il sessanta per cento delle riunioni che ti rovinano la vita. Il martedì fa schifo perchè ci sono ancora quattro giorni lavorativi da superare; odi te stesso e il mondo perchè sei intrappolato nella ruota per criceti chiamata vita, schiavo della paga. Il mercoledì è terribile perchè ti rendi conto, verso mezzogiorno, che è finita metà della settimana lavorativa ma il fatto che tu veda la vita in questo modo significa che non sei nient'altro che la terza vignetta di quel vecchio fumetto che non faceva ridere, Cathy, quella in cui lei si rende conto di essere una grassa zitella solitaria e le si drizzano i capelli in testa e fa un grido tipo aughhhhhh! Il venerdì è terribile perchè ti senti come un topolino da laboratorio che aspetta che il cibo venga messo nella sua gabbia, e in questo caso il cibo è il weekend. Il sabato va bene ma appena bene. E la domenica, come ho già detto, è la giornata dimenticata dal tempo, in cui non succede niente e ti ritrovi, perversamente, a desiderare che sia di nuovo lunedì. Per cui, il massimo sarebbe una settimana fatta di giovedì. Tutti sono di buonumore, la gente fa davvero quello che deve e un luccichio di sabato rende tutto più brillante.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from JPod
“To make them forget how bad human beings are, they were taught too insistently that bears are good. Instead of being told honestly what humans are and what bears are.”
― Umberto Eco, quote from How to Travel with a Salmon and Other Essays
“It seems the women have decided I must put a stop to the feud against the MacDouglas or else they’ll serve us no more. (Lochlan)
In any capacity. (Ewan)
By Satan’s hairy toes, Sin, it appears I’ve died and gone to hell. (Braden)”
― Kinley MacGregor, quote from Claiming the Highlander
“When Neil Armstrong took his small step from Apollo 11 and looked around, he probably thought, Wow, sort of like Iceland—even though the moon was nothing like Iceland. But then, he was a tourist, and a tourist can’t help but have a distorted opinion of a place: he meets unrepresentative people, has unrepresentative experiences, and runs around imposing upon the place the fantastic mental pictures he had in his head when he got there. When Iceland became a tourist in global high finance it had the same problem as Neil Armstrong.”
― Michael Lewis, quote from Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World
“In the summer of 1705, an unusually extravagant rumor horrified the citizenry. The Tsar, it was said, had forbidden Russian men to marry for seven years so that Russian women might be married to foreigners being imported by the shipload. To preserve their young women, Astrachaners arranged a mass marriage before the foreigners could arrive, and on a single day, July 30, 1705, a hundred women were married.”
― Robert K. Massie, quote from Peter the Great: His Life and World
“You were once my beauty from pain, before you became by beauty from surrender. Now you've adapted into something different again."
"And what is that?"
"My beauty from love-both of you. Forever.”
― Georgia Cates, quote from Beauty from Love
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.