“Failure is authentic, and because it’s authentic, it’s real and genuine, and because of that, it’s a pure state of being.”
– Doug Coupland
“Sometimes failure isn’t an opportunity in disguise, it’s just you.”
– Doug Coupland
“If a building looks better under construction than it does when finished, then it’s a failure.”
– Doug Coupland
“Big companies are like marching bands. Even if half the band is playing random notes, it still sounds kind of like music. The concealment of failure is built into them.”
– Doug Coupland
“High school is such a shared experience in North American culture.”
– Doug Coupland
“Flying dreams mean that you’re doing the right thing with your life.”
– Doug Coupland
“We want our idols to be dead because it makes death a much less scary place.”
– Doug Coupland
“Workshops and seminars are basically financial speed dating for clueless people.”
– Doug Coupland
“If human beings had genuine courage, they’d wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween.”
– Doug Coupland
“If you don’t change, then what’s the point of anything happening to you?”
– Doug Coupland
“Human beings are the only animal that thinks they change who they are simply by moving to a different place. Birds migrate, but it’s not quite the same thing.”
– Doug Coupland
“If God drives a car, He’d drive a 1973 Ford LTD Brougham sedan with a claret-colored vinyl roof, with oxblood leather upholstery and an opera window.”
– Doug Coupland
“Canadians can easily ‘pass for American’ as long as we don’t accidentally use metric measurements or apologize when hit by a car.”
– Doug Coupland
“The real killers in the business world aren’t the ones who aim for the top, it’s the ones who aim for two notches below the top.”
– Doug Coupland
“Most people have no idea how to politely answer a phone. The English do, and it’s been their only major business advantage for the past two centuries.”
– Doug Coupland
“Handmade presents are scary because they reveal that you have too much free time.”
– Doug Coupland
“Sometimes the best lighting of all is a power failure.”
– Doug Coupland
“The capacity for not feeling lonely can carry a very real price, that of feeling nothing at all.”
– Doug Coupland
“The time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself.”
– Doug Coupland
“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.”
– Doug Coupland