“...and when you meet someone and fall in love, and they fall in love with you, you ask them "Will you take my heart-- stains and all?" and they say "I will," and they ask you the same question and you say, "I will," too.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“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.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“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.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“Letting go of randomness is one of the hardest decisions a person can make.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“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.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“It's starts out young- you try not be different just to survive- you try to be just like everyone else- anonymity becomes reflexive- and then one day you wake up and you've become all those other people- the others- the something you aren't. And you wonder if you can ever be what it is you really are. Or you wonder if it's too late to find out.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“It's like male geeks don't know how to deal with real live women, so they just assume it's a user interface problem. Not their fault. They'll just wait for the next version to come out- something more "user friendly.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“What is human behavior, except trying to prove that we're not animals?”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“Beware of the corporate invasion of private memory.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“Do you remember that old TV series, Get Smart? Do you remember at the beginning where Maxwell Smart is walking down the secret corridor and there are all of those doors that open sideways, and upside down and gateways and stuff? I think that everyone keeps a whole bunch of doors just like this between themselves and the world. But when you're in love, all of your doors are open, and all of their doors are open. And you roller-skate down your halls together.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“I sandpapered the roof of my mouth with 3 bowls of Cap'n Crunch - had raw gobbets of mouth-beef dangling onto my tongue all day”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“I say ‘Uhmm...’ a lot. I mentioned this to Karla and she says it’s a CPU word. It means you’re assembling data in your head - spooling.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“But then a bumblebee bumbled above us and it stole our attention the way flying things can.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“What's a bar bill but a surtax on reality?”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“Anyway, I want to remember that love can happen. Because there is life after not having a life. I never expected love to happen. What was I expecting from life, then?”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“Sometimes you accidentally input an extra digit into the year: i.e, 19993 and you add 18,000 years on to *now*, and you realize that the year 19993 will one day exist and that time is a scary thing, indeed.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“I ma trying to feel more well adjusted than I really am, which is, I guess, the human condition.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“Face it: You're always just a breath away from a job in telemarketing.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“The belief that tomorrow is a different place from today is certainly a unique hallmark of our species.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“I wondered what it was to pray, because it was something I have never learned to do, and all I remember is falling.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“We can no longer create the feeling of an era...of time being particular to one spot in time.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“...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.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“Maybe thinking you're supposed to 'have a life' is a stupid way of buying into an untenable 1950s narrative of what life *supposed* to be. How do we know that all of these people with 'no lives' aren't really on the new frontier of human sentience and preceptions?”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“What is the search for the next great compelling application but a search for the human identity?”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“If somebody wants to run for office, they had better to explain why they want to run for office. Wanting to be a candidate seems, in itself, reason for exclusion.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“I don't want to lose you. I can't imagine ever feeling this
strongly about anything or anybody ever again. This was unexpected, my
soul's connection to you.
You stole my loneliness
No one knows that I was wishing for you, a thief, to enter my
house of autonomy, that I had locked my doors but my
Windows were open, hoping, but not believing, you
would enter.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“Susan, nonetheless, wanted to know why she was having such a dating problem. Dusty said, "I think your problem is that you think everyone else is a freak except you, but everybody's a freak- you included- and once you learn that, the World of Dating is yours.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“Abe: Wise hermit cast adrift on asteroid for thousands of years; has developed odd code languages for everyday actions; lonely but not bitter; his heart is cryogenically frozen, and he must search the universe pursuing the Thawer.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“In the spirit of Ethan's neurosis, we made a drywall list of keyboard buttons we would like to see: PLEASE, THANK YOU, FUCK OFF, DIE, OOPS...MY MISTAKE, DO SOMETHING COOL AND SURPRISE ME .”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
“Abe said something interesting. He said that because everyone's so poor these days, the '90s will be a decade with no architectural legacy or style- everyone's too poor to put up new buildings. He said that code is the architecture of the '90s.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Microserfs
Douglas Coupland
Born place: in CFB Baden-Söllingen, Germany
See more on GoodReads
“I had no idea there'd be so many Sherpas aboard!" exclaimed Miss Simpkins.
"I'm not a Sherpa," Nadira said. "I'm a gypsy."
"Oh, my goodness!" said the chaperone.”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Skybreaker
“Some things you carry around inside you as though they were part of your blood and bones, and when that happens, there’s nothing you can do to forget
…But I had never been much of a believer. If anything, I believed that things got worse before they got better. I believed good people suffered... people who have faith were so lucky; you didn’t want to ruin it for them. You didn’t want to plant doubt where there was none. You had to treat suck individuals tenderly and hope that some of whatever they were feeling rubs off on you
Those who love you will love you forever, without questions or boundaries or the constraints of time. Daily life is real, unchanging as a well-built house. But houses burn; they catch fire in the middle of the night.
The night is like any other night of disaster, with every fact filtered through a veil of disbelief. The rational world has spun so completely out of its orbit, there is no way to chart or expect what might happen next
At that point, they were both convinced that love was a figment of other people’s imaginations, an illusion fashioned out of smoke and air that really didn’t exist
Fear, like heat, rises; it drifts up to the ceiling and when it falls down it pours out in a hot and horrible rain
True love, after all, could bind a man where he didn’t belong. It could wrap him in cords that were all but impossible to break
Fear is contagious. It doubles within minutes; it grows in places where there’s never been any doubt before
The past stays with a man, sticking to his heels like glue, invisible and heartbreaking and unavoidable, threaded to the future, just as surely as day is sewn to night
He looked at girls and saw only sweet little fuckboxes, there for him to use, no hearts involved, no souls, and, most assuredly no responsibilities.
Welcome to the real world. Herein is the place where no one can tell you whether or not you’ve done the right thing.
I could tell people anything I wanted to, and whatever I told them, that would be the truth as far as they were concerned. Whoever I said I was, well then, that’s who id be
The truths by which she has lived her life have evaporated, leaving her empty of everything except the faint blue static of her own skepticism. She has never been a person to question herself; now she questions everything
Something’s, are true no matter how hard you might try to bloc them out, and a lie is always a lie, no matter how prettily told
You were nothing more than a speck of dust, good-looking dust, but dust all the same
Some people needed saving
She doesn’t want to waste precious time with something as prosaic as sleep. Every second is a second that belongs to her; one she understands could well be her last
Why wait for anything when the world is so cockeyed and dangerous? Why sit and stare into the mirror, too fearful of what may come to pass to make a move?
At last she knows how it feels to take a chance when everything in the world is at stake, breathless and heedless and desperate for more
She’ll be imagining everything that’s out in front of them, road and cloud and sky, all the elements of a future, the sort you have to put together by hand, slowly and carefully until the world is yours once more”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blue Diary
“If you let people believe that you are weak, sooner or later you’re going to have to kill them.”
― Don Winslow, quote from Savages
“Em didn't truly understand about my panic attacks - no one did. But she'd never pushed me to explain, never tried to ditch me when things got weird, and never once looked at me like I was a freak.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from My Soul to Lose
“Duga, duga staza preko močvari u šumu, – ko ju je ugazio? Muškarac, čovek, prvi koji se našao tu. Za njega još nije bilo staze. (…) Tako je nastao put kroz široku utrinu koja nije nikome pripadala, kroz ničiju zemlju.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Growth of the Soil
Cold Wind
Living on Your Own T...
Andrew's Brain
Something Like Winte...
Truly, Madly, Deeply
Ten Days in a Mad-Ho...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.
