β
When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Don't waste your love on somebody, who doesn't value it.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy.
β
β
William Shakespeare
β
thus with a kiss I die
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo & Juliet)
β
Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly. then your love would also change.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake- its everything except what it is! (Act 1, scene 1)
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo & Juliet)
β
If a man has to say trust me, Gogu conveyed, it's a sure sign you cannot. Trust him, that is. Trust is a thing you know without words.
β
β
Juliet Marillier (Wildwood Dancing (Wildwood, #1))
β
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
O teach me how I should forget to think (1.1.224)
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father refuse thy name, thou art thyself thou not a montegue, what is montegue? tis nor hand nor foot nor any other part belonging to a man
What is in a name?
That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,
So Romeo would were he not Romeo called retain such dear perfection to which he owes without that title,
Romeo, Doth thy name!
And for that name which is no part of thee, take all thyself.
β
β
William Shakespeare
β
Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
SAMPSON [Aside to Gregory]: Is the law of our side, if I say ay?
GREGORY [Aside to Sampson]: No.
SAMPSON: No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand.
O, that I were a glove upon that hand
That I might touch that cheek!
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs;
Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears;
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-browed night;
Give me my Romeo; and, when I shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night...
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Bono met his wife in high school," Park says.
"So did Jerry Lee Lewis," Eleanor answers.
"Iβm not kidding," he says.
"You should be," she says, "weβre sixteen."
"What about Romeo and Juliet?"
"Shallow, confused," then dead.
"I love you, Park says.
"Wherefore art thou," Eleanor answers.
"Iβm not kidding," he says.
"You should be.
β
β
Rainbow Rowell (Eleanor & Park)
β
Can he love her? Can the soul really be satisfied with such polite affections? To love is to burn - to be on fire, like Juliet or Guinevere or Eloise...
β
β
Emma Thompson (The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film)
β
I defy you, stars.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Imagine if [Juliet] woke up and he was still alive, but..." She swallowed, waiting out a tremor in her voice. "But [Romeo] had killed her whole family. And burned her city. And killed and enslaved her people.
β
β
Laini Taylor (Days of Blood & Starlight (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #2))
β
Women may fall when there's no strength in men.
Act II
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet (Arden Shakespeare Second))
β
Juliet's version of cleanliness was next to godliness, which was to say it was erratic, past all understanding and was seldom seen.
β
β
Terry Pratchett (Unseen Academicals (Discworld, #37; Rincewind, #8))
β
A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
There's an old saying that applies to me: you can't lose a game if you don't play the game. (Act 1, scene 4)
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo & Juliet)
β
So you do believe in... true love? she whispered.
I took a deep breath, I think I have to, I said, blinking back tears. Without it, we're all going nowhere.
β
β
Juliet Marillier (Wildwood Dancing (Wildwood, #1))
β
Oh, I am fortune's fool!
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
If it had been easy for Romeo to get to Juliet, nobody would have cared. Same goes for Cyrano and Don Quixote and Gatsby and their respective paramours. What captures the imagination is watching men throw themselves at a brick wall over and over again, and wondering if this is the time that they won't be able to get back up.
β
β
Jodi Picoult (Vanishing Acts)
β
Perhaps this is what the stories meant when they called somebody heartsick. Your heart and your stomach and your whole insides felt hollow and empty and aching.
β
β
Juliet Marillier (Daughter of the Forest (Sevenwaters, #1))
β
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Juliet:
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
Romeo:
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Juliet:
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
Romeo:
O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Juliet:
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
Romeo:
Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.
Juliet:
Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
Romeo:
Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.
Juliet:
You kiss by the book.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
You are a lover. Borrow Cupid's wings
and soar with them above a common bound.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
If a man has to say trust me it's a sure sign you cannot. Trust him, that is. Trust is a thing you do without words.
β
β
Juliet Marillier (Wildwood Dancing (Wildwood, #1))
β
O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!
Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!
Despised substance of divinest show!
Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st,
A damned saint, an honourable villain!
O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell;
When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?
Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace!
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
All that he had of her was his memory, where he held every moment, every single moment that she had been his. That was all he had, to keep out the loneliness.
β
β
Juliet Marillier (Daughter of the Forest (Sevenwaters, #1))
β
O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
I dreamt a dream tonight.
Mercutio: And so did I.
Romeo: Well, what was yours?
Mercutio: That dreamers often lie.
Romeo: In bed asleep while they do dream things true.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
He would have told her - he would have said, it matters not if you are here or there, for I see you before me every moment. I see you in the light of the water, in the swaying of the young trees in the spring wind. I see you in the shadows of the great oaks, I hear your voice in the cry of the owl at night. You are the blood in my veins, and the beating of my heart. You are my first waking thought, and my last sigh before sleeping. You are - you are bone of my bone, and breath of my breath.
β
β
Juliet Marillier (Daughter of the Forest (Sevenwaters, #1))
β
I donβt remember Romeo being this pushy with Juliet!β.....He arched his eyebrows meaningfully. βAnd look at how that worked out for them. My way is betterβless death, more orgasms.
β
β
Tillie Cole (Sweet Home (Sweet Home, #1))
β
Love moderately. Long love doth so.
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
*Love each other in moderation. That is the key to long-lasting love. Too fast is as bad as too slow.*
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
She will fight for light, and he for dark,
Battling through the ages for loves sweet spark.
Wherever two souls adore truly, you will find them, lo,
The brave Juliet and the wicked Romeo.
β
β
Stacey Jay (Juliet Immortal (Juliet Immortal, #1))
β
turn him into stars and form a constellation in his image. His face will make the heavens so beautiful that the world will fall in love with the night and forget about the garish sun.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.
Be not her maid since she is envious.
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off!
It is my lady. Oh, it is my love.
Oh, that she knew she were!
She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?
Her eye discourses. I will answer it.β
I am too bold. 'Tis not to me she speaks.
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars
As daylight doth a lamp. Her eye in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand.
Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand
That I might touch that cheek!
β
β
William Shakespeare
β
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Peace? I hate the word as I hate hell and all Montagues.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Is that love, do you think?" he asks, sounding genuinely curious. "Being crazy about someone no matter how much they hurt you?
β
β
Stacey Jay (Juliet Immortal (Juliet Immortal, #1))
β
Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O any thing, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Hark,β he said, his tone very dry. βWhat stone through yonder window breaks?β
Kami yelled up at him, βIt is the east, and Juliet is a jerk!β
Jared abandoned Shakespeare and demanded, βWhat do you think youβre doing?β
βThrowing a pebble,β said Kami defensively. βUhβ¦ and Iβll pay for the window.β
Jared vanished and Kami was ready to start shouting again, when he reemerged with the pebble clenched in his fist. βThis isnβt a pebble! This is a rock.β
βItβs possible that your behaviour has inspired some negative feelings that caused me to pick a slightly overlarge pebble,β Kami admitted.
β
β
Sarah Rees Brennan (Unspoken (The Lynburn Legacy, #1))
β
Don't you long for something different to happen, something so exciting and new it carries you along with it like a great tide, something that lets your life blaze and burn so the whole world can see it?
β
β
Juliet Marillier (Son of the Shadows (Sevenwaters, #2))
β
Under loveβs heavy burden do I sink.
And, to sink in it, should you burden love;
Too great oppression for a tender thing.
Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.
If love be rough with you, be rough
with love;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo & Juliet)
β
Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
I love you. I want to do everything with you. I want to marry you and have kids with you and get old with you. And then I want to die the day before you do, so I never have to live without you.
β
β
Stacey Jay (Juliet Immortal (Juliet Immortal, #1))
β
What most people call loving consists of picking out a woman and marrying her. They pick her out, I swear, Iβve seen them. As if you could pick in love, as if it were not a lightning bolt that splits your bones and leaves you staked out in the middle of the courtyard. They probably say that they pick her out because-they-love-her, I think itβs just the siteoppo. Beatrice wasnβt picked out, Juliet wasnβt picked out. You donβt pick out the rain that soaks you to a skin when you come out of a concert.
β
β
Julio CortΓ‘zar
β
Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace!
And, lips, oh you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss a dateless bargain to engrossing death!
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
This is a long goodbye, yet not time enough. I have no aptitude for this. I cannot learn this. I would hold on, and hold on, until my hands clutch at emptiness.
β
β
Juliet Marillier (Son of the Shadows (Sevenwaters, #2))
β
I like the truth, even when it does trouble me.
β
β
Juliet Marillier (Wildwood Dancing (Wildwood, #1))
β
What's in a name, anyway? That which we call a nose by any other name would still smell.
β
β
Adam Long (The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (abridged))
β
This is why my betrayal was so terrible. Because you believed me incapable of hurting you, and yet I did.
β
β
Chloe Gong (These Violent Delights (These Violent Delights, #1))
β
One fire burns out another's burning,
One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Itβs easy for someone to joke about scars if theyβve never been cut.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
But there is one thing you must remember, if you forget all else. There is no good or evil, save in the way you see the world. There is no dark or light save in your own vision. All changes in the blink of an eyelid; yet all remains the same.
β
β
Juliet Marillier (Daughter of the Forest (Sevenwaters, #1))
β
O! she doth teach the torches to burn bright
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.
- Romeo -
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Hurt is a part of life. To be honest, I think hurt is a part of happiness, that our definition of happiness has gotten very narrow lately, very nervous, a little afraid of this brawling, fabulous, unpredictable world.
β
β
Julian Gough (Juno & Juliet)
β
Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath
To say to me that thou art out of breath?
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
There is lust and then there is love. They are related, but still very different things. To indulge in one requires little but honeyed speech and a change of clothes; to obtain the other, by contrast, a man must give up his rib. In return, his woman will undo the sin of Eve, and bring him back into Paradise.
β
β
Anne Fortier (Juliet)
β
You know not, yet, the sort of love that strikes like a lightning bolt; that clutches hold of you by the heart, as irrevocably as death; that becomes the lodestar by which you steer the rest of your life. I would not wish such a love on anyone, man or woman, for it can make your life a paradise, or it can destroy you utterly.
β
β
Juliet Marillier (Daughter of the Forest (Sevenwaters, #1))
β
We burn daylight.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Out of her favour, where I am in love.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
I am to cover the philosophical side of the debate and so far my only thought is that reading keeps you from going gaga.
β
β
Mary Ann Shaffer (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society)
β
The sweetest honey is loathsome in its own deliciousness. And in the taste destroys the appetite. Therefore, love moderately.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Romeo and Juliet is synonymous with βromanceβ in our culture today. It is seen as the love story in English-speaking culture, an emotional ideal to live up to. Yet when you really get down to what happens in the story, these kids are absolutely out of their fucking minds. And they just killed themselves to prove it!
β
β
Mark Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life)
β
Real love has little to do with falling. It's a climb up the rocky face of a mountain, hard work, and most people are too selfish or too scared to bother.
Very few reach the critical point in their relationship that summons the attention of the light and the dark, that place where they will make a commitment to love no matter what obstacles-or temptations- appear in their path.
β
β
Stacey Jay (Juliet Immortal (Juliet Immortal, #1))
β
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Educated men are so impressive!
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
There is no truth on this island of yours. Rather, there are as many truths as there are stars in the sky; and every one of them different.
β
β
Juliet Marillier (Daughter of the Forest (Sevenwaters, #1))
β
My world was changing, and I was not ready for it.
β
β
Juliet Marillier (Daughter of the Forest (Sevenwaters, #1))
β
You said you didn't want to get involved with me,that one of us would get hurt and how you couldn't bear it. Well that just isn't good enough..Look what happens to people just living their lives. They get hurt, it's not fair they get hurt but they do, all the time, no matter how careful they are. Somebody can just just come along and hurt them, for no stupid reason..
β
β
Julian Gough (Juno & Juliet)
β
Give me my sin again.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Everything we say is a story. But nothing we say is just a story.
β
β
Anne Fortier (Juliet)
β
I wish- I wish I could dry these tears, I wish I could make this better for you. But I don't know how.
β
β
Juliet Marillier (Son of the Shadows (Sevenwaters, #2))
β
I want to help you,' I say to Juliet, though I know that I can't make her understand, not like this.
'Don't you get it?' She turns to me, and to my surprise I see she's crying. 'I can't be fixed, do you understand?'
I think of standing on the stairs with Kent and saying exactly the same thing. I think of his beautiful light green eyes, and the way he said, You don't need to be fixed and the warmth of his hands and the softness of his lips. I think of Juliet's mask and how maybe we all feel patched and stitched together and not quite right.
I am not afraid.
Dimly, I have the sense of roaring in my ears and voices so close and faces, white and frightened, emerging from the darkness, but I can't stop staring at Juliet as she's crying, still so beautiful.
'It's too late,' she says.
And I say, 'It's never too late.
β
β
Lauren Oliver (Before I Fall)
β
O, swear not by the moon, thβ inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circle orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
You will find the way, daughter of the forest. Through grief and pain, through many trials, through betrayal and loss, your feet will walk a straight path.
β
β
Juliet Marillier (Daughter of the Forest (Sevenwaters, #1))
β
Love doesn't want people to stay ignorant and frightened. Love doesn't value obedience over all else. Love doesn't judge and find some lives--or loves--more valuable than others. Love doesn't use people and throw them away. Love stays, and makes you stronger, even when the person you love is gone.
β
β
Stacey Jay (Juliet Immortal (Juliet Immortal, #1))
β
True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more inconstant than the wind, who woos
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his side to the dew-dropping south.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo & Juliet)
β
Itβs awful, telling it like this, isnβt it? As though we didnβt know the ending. As though it could have another ending. Itβs like watching Romeo drink poison. Every time you see it you get fooled into thinking his girlfriend might wake up and stop him. Every single time you see it you want to shout, 'You stupid ass, just wait a minute,' and sheβll open her eyes! 'Oi, you, you twat, open your eyes, wake up! Donβt die this time!' But they always do.
β
β
Elizabeth Wein (Code Name Verity (Code Name Verity, #1))
β
This woman is Pocahontas. She is Athena and Hera. Lying in this messy, unmade bed, eyes closed, this is Juliet Capulet. Blanche DuBois. Scarlett O'Hara. With ministrations of lipstick and eyeliner I give birth to Ophelia. To Marie Antoinette. Over the next trip of the larger hand around the face of the bedside clock, I give form to Lucrezia Borgia. Taking shape at my fingertips, my touches of foundation and blush, here is Jocasta. Lying here, Lady Windermere. Opening her eyes, Cleopatra. Given flesh, a smile, swinging her sculpted legs off one side of the bed, this is Helen of Troy. Yawning and stretching, here is every beautiful woman across history.
β
β
Chuck Palahniuk (Tell-All)
β
Claire: Dear Claire, "What" and "If" are two words as non-threatening as words can be. But put them together side-by-side and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life: What if? What if? What if? I don't know how your story ended but if what you felt then was true love, then it's never too late. If it was true then, why wouldn't it be true now? You need only the courage to follow your heart. I don't know what a love like Juliet's feels like - love to leave loved ones for, love to cross oceans for but I'd like to believe if I ever were to feel it, that I will have the courage to seize it. And, Claire, if you didn't, I hope one day that you will. All my love, Juliet
β
β
Lise Friedman (Letters to Juliet: Celebrating Shakespeare's Greatest Heroine, the Magical City of Verona, and the Power of Love)
β
If a man truly loves,....He does not consider the obstacles, the restrictions, the reasons why his choice may be flawed or impratical. He gives no heed to what others may think. His heart has no room for that, for it is filled to the brim with the unutterable truth of his feelings.
β
β
Juliet Marillier (Cybele's Secret (Wildwood, #2))
β
Well, in that hit you miss. She'll not be hit
With Cupid's arrow. She hath Dian's wit,
And, in strong proff of chastity well armed,
From Love's weak childish bow she lives uncharmed.
She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide th' encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold.
O, she is rich in beauty; only poor
That, when she dies, with dies her store.
Act 1,Scene 1, lines 180-197
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
We try, we struggle, all the time to find words to express our love. The quality, the quantity, certain that no two people have experienced it before in the history of creation. Perhaps Catherine and Heathcliff, perhaps Romeo and Juliet, maybe Tristan and Isolde, maybe Hero and Leander, but these are just characters, make-believe. We have known each other forever, since before conception even. We remember playing together in a playpen, crossing paths at FAO Schwarz. We remember meeting in front of the Holy Temple in the days before Christ, we remember greeting each other at the Forum, at the Parthenon, on passing ships as Christopher Columbus sailed to America. We have survived pogrom together, we have died in Dachau together, we have been lynched by the Ku Klux Klan together. There has been cancer, polio, the bubonic plague, consumption, morphine addiction. We have had children together, we have been children together, we were in the womb together. Our history is so deep and wide and long, we have known each other a million years. And we don't know how to express this kind of love, this kind of feeling. I get paralyzed sometimes. One day, we are in the shower and I want to say to him, I could be submerged in sixty feet of water right now, never drowning, never even fearing drowning, knowing I would always be safe with you here, knowing that it would be ok to die as long as you are here. I want to say this but don't.
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Elizabeth Wurtzel (Prozac Nation)
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I used to think Romeo and Juliet was the greatest love story ever written. But now that Iβm middle-aged, I know better. Oh, Romeo certainly thinks he loves his Juliet. Driven by hormones, he unquestionably lusts for her. But if he loves her, itβs a shallow love. You want proof?β Cagney didnβt wait for Dr. Victor to say yay or nay.
βSoon after meeting her for the first time, he realizes he forgot to ask her for her name. Can true love be founded upon such shallow acquaintance? I donβt think so. And at the end, when he thinks sheβs dead, he finds no comfort in living out the remainder of his life within the paradigm of his love, at least keeping alive the memory of what they had briefly shared, even if it was no more than illusion, or more accurately, hormonal.
βThose of us watching events unfold from the darkness know she merely lies in slumber. But does he seek the reason for her life-like appearance? No. Instead he accuses Death of amorousness, convinced that the βlean abhorred monsterβ endeavors to keep Juliet in her present state, her cheeks flushed, so that she might cater to his own dissolute desires. But does Romeo hold her in his arms one last time and feel the warmth of her blood still coursing through her veins? Does he pinch her to see if she might awaken? Hold a mirror to her nose to see if her breath fogs it? Once, twice, three times a βno.ββ
Cagney sighed, listened to the leather creak as he shifted his weight in his chair.
βNo,β he repeated. βHis alleged love is so superficial and selfish that he seeks to escape the pain of loss by taking his own life. Thatβs not love, but obsessive infatuation. Had they wedβJuliet bearing many children, bonding, growing together, the masks of the star-struck teens they once were long ago cast away, basking in the comforting campfire of a love born of a lifetime together, not devoured by the raging forest fire of youth that consumes everything and leaves behind nothingβand she died of natural causes, would Romeo have been so moved to take his own life, or would he have grieved properly, for her loss and not just his own?
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J. Conrad Guest (The Cobb Legacy)
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When my husband had an affair with someone else I watched his eyes glaze over when we ate dinner together and I heard him singing to himself without me, and when he tended the garden it was not for me.
He was courteous and polite; he enjoyed being at home, but in the fantasy of his home I was not the one who sat opposite him and laughed at his jokes. He didn't want to change anything; he liked his life. The only thing he wanted to change was me.
It would have been better if he had hated me, or if he had abused me, or if he had packed his new suitcases and left.
As it was he continued to put his arm round me and talk about being a new wall to replace the rotten fence that divided our garden from his vegetable patch. I knew he would never leave our house. He had worked for it.
Day by day I felt myself disappearing. For my husband I was no longer a reality, I was one of the things around him. I was the fence which needed to be replaced. I watched myself in the mirror and saw that I was mo longer vivid and exciting. I was worn and gray like an old sweater you can't throw out but won't put on.
He admitted he was in love with her, but he said he loved me.
Translated, that means, I want everything. Translated, that means, I don't want to hurt you yet. Translated, that means, I don't know what to do, give me time.
Why, why should I give you time? What time are you giving me? I am in a cell waiting to be called for execution.
I loved him and I was in love with him. I didn't use language to make a war-zone of my heart.
'You're so simple and good,' he said, brushing the hair from my face.
He meant, Your emotions are not complex like mine. My dilemma is poetic.
But there was no dilemma. He no longer wanted me, but he wanted our life
Eventually, when he had been away with her for a few days and returned restless and conciliatory, I decided not to wait in my cell any longer. I went to where he was sleeping in another room and I asked him to leave. Very patiently he asked me to remember that the house was his home, that he couldn't be expected to make himself homeless because he was in love.
'Medea did,' I said, 'and Romeo and Juliet and Cressida, and Ruth in the Bible.'
He asked me to shut up. He wasn't a hero.
'Then why should I be a heroine?'
He didn't answer, he plucked at the blanket.
I considered my choices.
I could stay and be unhappy and humiliated.
I could leave and be unhappy and dignified.
I could Beg him to touch me again.
I could live in hope and die of bitterness.
I took some things and left. It wasn't easy, it was my home too.
I hear he's replaced the back fence.
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Jeanette Winterson (Sexing the Cherry)