"I know what 'nothing' means...."
— Maria Wyeth in Play It As It Lays

"How do you solve a problem like Maria?"
— Oscar Hammerstein II

"...problems can be solved by manipulating just two symbols, 1 and 0...." 
— George Johnson, obituary of Claude Shannon

"The female and the male continue this charming dance, populating the world with all living beings." 
— Leonard Shlain, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, Penguin Arkana paperback, 1999, Chapter 17, "Lingam/Yoni" 

"According to Showalter’s essay*, 'In Elizabethan slang, ‘nothing’ was a term for the female genitalia . . . what lies between maids’ legs, for, in the male visual system of representation and desire.... Ophelia’s story becomes

the Story of O — the zero, the empty circle or mystery of feminine difference, the cipher of female sexuality to be deciphered by feminist interpretation.' (222)* Ophelia is a highly sexual being..."

— Leigh DiAngelo,
   "Ophelia as a Sexual Being"

*Showalter, Elaine. "Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism." Hamlet. Ed. Susanne L. Wofford. Boston: Bedford Books of St.Martin’s Press, 1994. 220-238.