A working definition of irony

from one of those writers that I loved, then loved to hate, then ignored, and may come to love again, Mr. D. Coupland: "The way I would define irony is this: to have the ability to contain opposing ideas inside your head without going crazy," being interviewed by reliably entertaining Euan Ferguson.

It's a neat punchline to an excellent conference paper on irony that one of my students gave in class, which began with Winona Ryder's failure to define irony in Reality Bites. Proof that Coupland is smarter than the generation of imitation slackers that he spawned.