The Juliet Stories Quotes

“Nurse. Registered Massage therapist. Yoga instructor. She considered al of the above programs and costed out notions, and returned, always, to the library, to its heat, the fragrance of dried pages like pressed leaves, its quietude. Something else is present here too: oscuridad - the Spanish word for darkness, which Juliet believes contains so much more than its translation. The oscuridad in here mirrors her own: one tiny darkness amidst the darkness of a multitude of minds seeking illumination, dead and alive trapped in dormant words. She thinks she can hear the oscuridad, her cheek pressed to the fake wood of the carrel she has earned; she can hear it, even though the library's lights are forever on.”
― Carrie Snyder, The Juliet Stories

“She thinks: A gift is a gift; you don't get to choose, whether it be a secret kept, a polite falsehood, a book you've already read, or a sweater that does not fit. You open it, you open your mind, you do not think about how you might use it or whether indeed it is any use to you. You understand that the giver is giving you what she can, that she is doing her best.
You say thank you.”
― Carrie Snyder, The Juliet Stories

“You can die of sadness? thinks Juliet; the idea encrusts a soft centre of pure terror.”
― Carrie Snyder, The Juliet Stories

“Hockey is a violent sport that rewards angry men and boys. Ringette is an unsolved feminine mystery.”
― Carrie Snyder, The Juliet Stories

“A short list of things to fear: the hills opening up, automatic weaponry, macho posturing, stepping on a mine, thrown into the air, engulfed in flames, ambush. What Juliet fears: snakes.”
― Carrie Snyder, The Juliet Stories

“Life is nothing like a choose your own adventure. Except for when it is, in its randomness: a cancer sell splitting and spreading ruthlessly within the bloodstream; a storm raising on a deadly lake. Except for when it is, in the way the ending changes - in memory in meaning father than substance.”
― Carrie Snyder, The Juliet Stories

“The boat heaves and plunges, temporarily weightless awash. Juliet believes it is unsinkable. She also believes that taxis and buses never crash, that every movie that ever makes it to the theatre must be objectively good, and that her own hands clasped in a certain special formation across her waist will act as effectively as a seatbelt in a moment of emergency.”
― Carrie Snyder, The Juliet Stories