Douglas Coupland

"A bland smile is like a green light at an intersection, it feels good when you get one, but you forget it the moment you're past it."

"Even when you take a holiday from technology, technology doesn't take a break from you."

"It's very strange that most people don't care if their knowledge of their family history only goes back three generations."

"The time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself."

"Aliens didn't come down to Earth and give us technology. We invented it ourselves. Therefore it can never be alienating it can only be an expression of our humanity."

"When you write, it's just a much more crystalline, compressed version of the voice you think with - though not the one you speak with. I think your writing voice is your laser-guided missile. It's the poetry part of you."

"When you think about Twitter and you think what a dumb stupid throwaway technology, and then you have the Iranian elections and it actually saves the day - you can't prejudge technologies now because they have effects you may not have intended."