“If someone told me at the beginning of that summer that I would come face-to-face with death because of a Romeo and Juliet romance, I would never have believed it. But it wasn't like that summer went at all like I planned in the first place.”

“It was a summer I would never, ever forget. It was the summer everything began. It was the summer I turned pretty. Because for the first time, I felt it. Pretty, I mean. Every summer up to this one, I believed it’d be different. Life would be different. And that summer, it finally was.”

“Something told him that something was coming to an end. Not the world, exactly. Just the summer. There would be other summers, but there would never be one like this. Ever again.”

“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”

“Summer romances cometo an end. That was part of the deal. They are built like certain plants or insects, not able to survive more than one season. I thought we would be different. We were, I guess, but not in the way I thought. I truly believed that we would never let each other go. The young are so dumb.”

“As it was, they had never even managed a successful first date before their romance had gone the way of Romeo and Juliet's -- except that Romeo and Juliet didn't wake up the next day, leave the crypt and say, "Now what?”