A non-event ... is better to write about than an event, because with a non-event you can make up the meaning yourself, it means whatever you say it means.

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

Canadians are fond of a good disaster, especially if it has ice, water, or snow in it. You thought the national flag was about a leaf, didn't you? Look harder. It's where someone got axed in the snow.

War is what happens when language fails.

So that’s what art is, for the artist,” said Crake. “An empty drainpipe. An amplifier. A stab at getting laid.

Potential has a shelf life.

I planned my death carefully, unlike my life, which meandered along from one thing to another, despite my feeble attempts to control it.