Douglas Coupland

Ten commandments yet seven deadly sins: conflict?

I began doing writing projects and art and design projects to explore a new way of seeing Canada. Roots is one more way of continuing this exploration. I want to present a wide-open Canadian sense of color, adventure, communication and openness that defines our country.

Adventure without risk is Disneyland.

Your brain forms roughly 10,000 new cells every day, but unless they hook up to preexisting cells with strong memories, they die. Serves them right.

I like being surrounded by good ideas. Every single time you walk past something you like, you get a blast of happy chemicals to the brain, and I like that.

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.

It also allows you to look as though you're not particularly from the present, future or past, either.

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.

Money is more than a massively consensual IOU note. It is a piece of infrastructure and is as artificial as Interstate 5, NutraSweet or season three of 'Mad Men.'

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.

Make your goals big and broad enough so that they never become answered prayers and boomerang to curse you.

Storytelling is ultimately a creative act of pattern recognition. Through characters, plot and setting, a writer creates places where previously invisible truths become visible. Or the storyteller posits a series of dots that the reader can connect.