# Quote — Douglas Coupland, Generation X

> We live small lives on the periphery; we are marginalized and there's a great deal in which we choose not to participate. We wanted silence and we have that silence now. We arrived here speckled in sores and zits, our colons so tied in knots that we never thought we'd have a bowel movement again. Our systems had stopped working, jammed with the odor of copy machines, Wite-Out, the smell of bond paper, and the endless stress of pointless jobs done grudgingly to little applause. We had compulsions that made us confuse shopping with creativity, to take downers and assume that merely renting a video on a Saturday night was enough. But now that we live here in the desert, things are much, much better.

- Author: [Douglas Coupland](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-coupland.md)
- Book: [Generation X](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-coupland/generation-x.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Douglas_Coupland#Generation_X_(1991)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-coupland/generation-x/we-live-small

## More from this book

> tele-parablizing - morals used in everyday life that derive from TV sitcom plots: "That's just like the episode where Jan lost her glasses!" (page 120)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-coupland/generation-x/tele-parablizing-morals-used.md)

> the tens - the first decade of a new century. (page 163)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-coupland/generation-x/the-tens-the.md)

> "You see, when you're middle class, you have to live with the fact that history will ignore you. You have to live with the fact that history can never champion your causes and that history will never feel sorry for you. It is the price that is paid for day-to-day comfort and silence. And because of this price, all happinesses are sterile; all sadnesses go unpitied."

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-coupland/generation-x/you-see-when.md)