Inspiration
Coupland began to write the novel in December, 2001, after a “nightmarish 40-city tour that began on 10 September”. This tour took him across the United States and allowed him to experience the “collective sorrow” of the United States. Coupland began to research the Columbine events after this experience.
Some people say, how come you never explored the motives of the ones who did the shooting. To my mind, that was all people talked about. I'm very much a fan of JG Ballard, where you have people in this fantastically quotidian situation that goes suddenly wrong, and how people deal with that. Killers get too much press already. I remember growing up, the stories in which they live happily ever after, and the only part that I was interested was, like, after that. Well it was fun for a while then they broke up and she got into crystal meth, found religion and turned into a lesbian. That's the part I wanted to know. That's far more interesting to me. — Coupland in The ObserverThe quotation from Corinthians that opens the novel was found on a gravestone of one of the children who died in a high school shooting.
Read more about this topic: Hey Nostradamus!
Famous quotes containing the word inspiration:
“Although this garrulity of advising is born with us, I confess that life is rather a subject of wonder, than of didactics. So much fate, so much irresistible dictation from temperament and unknown inspiration enter into it, that we doubt we can say anything out of our own experience whereby to help each other.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Poets should be lawgivers; that is, the boldest lyric inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead, the civil code, and the day’s work. But now the two things seem irreconcilably parted.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“For a painter, the Mecca of the world, for study, for inspiration and for living is here on this star called Paris. Just look at it, no wonder so many artists have come here and called it home. Brother, if you can’t paint in Paris, you’d better give up and marry the boss’s daughter.”
—Alan Jay Lerner (1918–1986)