The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

by V.E. Schwab

Stories are a way to preserve one’s self. To be remembered. And to forget.

Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.

Candace always gave him hell for his sweet tooth, he told Addie one morning, said it would kill him, but life’s a bitch with a crooked sense of humor—’cause she’s gone, and he’s still eating shit (his words, not hers).

Moments of joy register as brief, but ecstatic. Moments of pain stretch long and unbearably loud.

the irony is hardly lost on you that in wanting to live, to learn, to find yourself, you’ve gotten lost.

“Pain can be beautiful,” he says, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “It can transform. It can create.”

Everyone thinks photography is truth, but it’s just a very convincing lie.”