And consider: it is loss to which everything flows, absence in which everything flowers

Make the verses flow together. If a following verse has nothing to do with the previous, you may lose our listener/reader. You want a smooth flow to hear or read, and it's easier to memorize.

Fear has a smell, as love does.

We have begun to slam doors, and to throw things. I throw my purse, an ashtray, a package of chocolate chips, which breaks on impact. We are picking up chocolate chips for days. Jon throws a glass of milk, the milk, not the glass: he knows his own strength, as I do not. He throws a box of Cheerios, unopened. The things I throw miss, although they are worse things. The things he throws hit, but are harmless. I begin to see how the line is crossed, between histrionics and murder.

Canada is a balloon-puncturing country. You are not really allowed to be an icon unless you also make an idiot of yourself.

Falling in love, although it resulted in altered body chemistry and was therefore real, was a hormonally induced delusional state, according to him. In addition it was humiliating, because it put you at a disadvantage, it gave the love object too much power. As for sex per se, it lacked both challenge and novelty, and was on the whole a deeply imperfect solution to the problem of intergenerational genetic transfer.

...we must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing.