Douglas Coupland

And then there is me, sad little me, living in a dream, staring out the window, never again to find love.

I am not a stupid woman. I am aware that there is a world out there that functions without regard to me. There are wars and budgets and bombings and vast dimensions of wealth and greed and ambition and corruption.

I’m looking out the pickup truck’s window at Ambleside Beach and the ocean and the freighters – at the mothers tending to their children covered in sand and sugar and spit, at the blue sky and the mallard ducks and the Canada geese.

And I wondered then, how do we ever know what beauty lies inside of people, and the strange ways this world works to lure that beauty outward?

A thought: Sometimes the clouds and sunlight will form in a way you’ve never seen them do before, and your city will feel as if it’s another city altogether.

She said that we, as humans, bear the burden of having to be every animal in the world rolled into one.

She said that we really have no identity of our own.

I asked her if she was unhappy; she says it is not a question of happiness.

My mind then wandered.

Linus sipped his drink and said, “You know, from what I’ve seen, at twenty you know you’re not going to be a rock star. By twenty-five, you know you’re not going to be a dentist or a professional.