“...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
“And as he dug, he wept. He saw Hari's animated face, and numberless dead men, and the hatred on the faces of the sepoys . . . and it suddenly seemed to him that he could see clearly the basis of all conflict and misery, something mysterious which grows in men at the same time as hair and teeth and brains
and which reveals its presence by the utter and atrocious inflexibility of all human habits and beliefs, even including his own.”
― J.G. Farrell, quote from The Siege of Krishnapur
“Hamilton found it difficult to concentrate on what Eliza was saying. Her lips were moving rapidly, but he couldn't actually decipher what the words coming out of her mouth were. It was such a lovely mouth, and he found it quite quirky, given the fact that it could assume different positions with alarming frequency. Like now, it was pursed in a most attractive manner, and now... it was moving again as if the lady could not get the words out fast enough. His gaze traveled upward, past the eyes that were flashing and settled on her hair. He couldn't help but appreciate the efforts of Mabel. The curls she'd been able to produce on Eliza's head, well, they were tantalizing. He had the strangest urge to reach out and touch them, to feel with his own hand if they were as soft as they appeared, something he'd been contemplating ever since he got a good look at her in the dining room. He pulled abruptly back to reality when Eliza poked him in the chest.”
― Jen Turano, quote from A Change of Fortune
“The kind of friend who helps you remember which way is up. And who reminds you that sometimes that's the only direction you can go.”
― Nina Lane, quote from Arouse
“Soldier and civilian, they died in their tens of thousands because death had been concocted for them, morality hitched like a halter round the warhorse so that we could talk about 'target-rich environments' and 'collateral damage' - that most infantile of attempts to shake off the crime of killing - and report the victory parades, the tearing down of statues and the importance of peace.
Governments like it that way. They want their people to see war as a drama of opposites, good and evil, 'them' and 'us', victory or defeat. But war is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death. It represents a total failure of the human spirit.”
― Robert Fisk, quote from The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East
“The most important thing I learned [...] was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.”
― Gavin Extence, quote from The Universe Versus Alex Woods
Love Her Wild
Gadiantons and the S...
Death's End
Dreams and Shadows
Perfect
Violent EndsBookQuoters 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.
