“Peter and Jessie were like Romeo and Juliet. Have you ever seen that old movie? Starring Leonardo Dicaprio?”

“No one at fifteen was ever in love, outside of Romeo and Juliet, and maybe not even them. Old Giff used to argue that the star-crossed lovers simply were buzzed on the fumes of forbidden lust. Give them thirty years of togetherness, Old Giff always said, and Juliet would be plunging the dagger into Romeo.”

“Romeo and Juliet, say they didn’t die but Juliet got pissed and took off. Everyone would know it was Romeo and Juliet, would always be Romeo and Juliet, even if later Romeo hooked up with Nancy. No one ever heard of Nancy, doesn’t even sound right, Romeo and Nancy. Everyone knows Romeo’s meant to be with Juliet. Even if Romeo loved Nancy, Nancy would always know she was never Juliet”

“If Kate Winslet had been the Duff, Leonardo DiCaprio wouldn't have been after her in Titanic and that could have saved all of us a lot of tears.”

“Oh, Romeo and Juliet! Lovely! Didn’t you just love it?”She certainly didn’t sound like a nun. “Yes. I did. I liked it a lot. There were a few things I didn`t like about it, but it was quite moving, on the whole.”“What didn`t you like abut it? Can you remember?”To tell you the truth, it was sort of embarrassing, in a way, to be talking about Romeo and Juliet with her. I mean that play gets pretty sexy in some parts, and she was a nun and all, but she asked me, so I discussed it with her for a while. “Well, I`m not too crazy about Romeo and Juliet,”I said. “I mean I like them, but – I don’t know. They get pretty annoying sometimes. I mean I felt much sorrier when old Mercutio got killed then when Romeo and Juliet did. The thing is, I never liked Romeo too much after Mercutio gets stabbed by that other man – Juliet’s cousin – what’s his name?”(The Catcher in The Rye, p. 111).”

“The problem is that when you change Romeo and Juliet’s story it ends up like that ridiculous Taylor Swift song. And that’s not what people love about Romeo and Juliet.”