Mona > Mona's Quotes

“We are drawn to this particular profession because we are damaged - we study psychology to heal ourselves. Whether we are prepared to admit this or not is another question.”
― Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient

“You become increasingly comfortable with madness and not just the madness of others, but your own. We're all crazy, I believe, just in different ways.”
― Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient

“And we simply sat in silence”
― Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient

“I tore off a sheet of paper from a pad, and reached for my pen. An old habit, formed at university - something about the process of putting pen to paper helps me organize my mind. I've always had difficulty formulating an opinion until I've written it down.”
― Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient

“He was a psychiatrist through and through, I thought. And by that I mean psychiatrists tend to be wary of psychodynamic thinking. They favour a more biological, chemical, and above all practical approach - like the cup of pills Alicia was handed at every meal.”
― Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient

“This whole mythology of us that I had built up, our hopes and dreams, likes and dislikes, our plans for the future; a life that had seemed so secure, so sturdy, now collapsed in a matter of seconds - like a house of cards in a gust of wind.”
― Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient

“But real love is very quiet, very still. It's boring, if seen from the perspective of high drama. Love is deep and calm - and constant.”
― Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient

“One can't help but wonder what their relationship will be like in the future, Alcestis and Admetus. Trust, once lost, is hard to recover.”
― Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient

“Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives--or to find strength in a very long one.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Three hundred years, and some part of her is still afraid of forgetting. There have been times, of course, when she wished her memory more fickle, when she would have given anything to welcome madness, and disappear. It is the kinder road, to lose yourself.
Like Peter, in J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan.
There, at the end, when Peter sits on the rock, the memory of Wendy Darling sliding from his mind, and it is sad, of course, to forget.
But it is a lonely thing, to be forgotten.
To remember when no one else does.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“What a luxury, to tell one's story. To be read, remembered.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Being forgotten, she thinks, is a bit like going mad. You begin to wonder what is real, if you are real. After all, how can a thing be real if it cannot be remembered?”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Perhaps an enemy’s company is still better than none.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“You are as good as gone, and every year you live will feel a lifetime, and in every lifetime, you will be forgotten. Your pain is meaningless. Your life is meaningless. The years will be like weights around your ankles. They will crush you, bit by bit, and when you cannot stand it, you will beg me to put you from your misery.”
― V.E. Schwab

“I remember you.
Three hundred years.
Three hundred years, and no one has said those words, no one has ever, ever remembered.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“What is your name?” His eyes slide from a corner of the room back to her.
“Why must I have one?”
“All things have names,” she says. “Names have purpose. Names have power.” She tips her glass his way. “You know that, or else you wouldn’t have stolen mine.”
A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, wolfish, amused. “If it is true,” he says, “that names have power, then why would I hand you mine?”
“Because I must call you something, to your face and in my head. And right now I have only curses.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Glass bites into her hand, and the pain is sharp, and real, the sudden scald of a burn without the lasting scar, and she does not care. In moments her cuts have already closed. The glasses and bottle lie whole. Once she thought it was a blessing, this inability to break, but now, the impotence is maddening.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Freedom is a pair of trousers and a buttoned coat. A man’s tunic and a tricorne hat. If only she had known. The darkness claimed he’d given her freedom, but really, there is no such thing for a woman, not in a world where they are bound up inside their clothes, and sealed inside their homes, a world where only men are given leave to roam.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“I think there are many ways to matter." He plucks the book from his pocket. "These are the words of a man - Voltaire. But they are also the hands that set the type. The ink that made it readable, the tree that made the paper. All of them matter, though credit goes only to the name on the cover.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“I would see you again,' he says. 'in daylight, or in darkness. As a woman, or a man. Please let me see you again.”
― V. E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“My name is Adeline LaRue, she tells herself. My father taught me how to be a dreamer, and my mother taught me how to be a wife, and Estele taught me how to speak to gods..”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“My name is Addie LaRue, she thinks to herself as she walks. Three hundred years, and some part of her is still afraid of forgetting. There have been times, of course, when she wished her memory more fickle, when she would have given anything to welcome madness, and disappear. It is the kinder road, to lose yourself. Like Peter, in J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. There, at the end, when Peter sits on the rock, the memory of Wendy Darling sliding from his mind, and it is sad, of course, to forget. But it is a lonely thing, to be forgotten.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“And Henry’s hands fall away from his face and he looks up at her, his green eyes fever bright, and says—“Because I made one, too.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“His heart has a draft. It lets in light. It lets in storms. It lets in everything.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Blink, and the years fall away like leaves.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Nothing is all good or all bad,” she says. “Life is so much messier than that.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Stories are a way to preserve one's self. To be remembered. And to forget.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Take a drink every time you hear you’re not enough.
Not the right fit.
Not the right look.
Not the right focus.
Not the right drive.
Not the right time.
Not the right job.
Not the right path.
Not the right future.
Not the right present.
Not the right you.
Not you.
(Not me?)
There’s just something missing.
From us.
What could I have done?
Nothing. It’s just…
(Who you are.)
I didn’t think we were serious.
(You’re just too…
…sweet.
…soft.
…sensitive.)
I just don’t see us ending up together.
I met someone.
I’m sorry
It’s not you.
Swallow it down.
We’re not on the same page.
We’re not in the same place.
It’s not you.
We can’t help who we fall in love with.
(And who we don’t.)
You’re such a good friend.
You’re going to make the right girl happy.
You deserve better.
Let’s stay friends.
I don’t want to lose you.
It’s not you.
I’m sorry.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“You can’t make people love you, Hen. If it’s not a choice, it isn’t real.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“And when the girl looks at him, she doesn't see perfect. She sees someone who cares too much, who feels too much, who is lost, and hungry, and wasting inside his curse. She sees the truth, and he doesn't know how, or why, only knows that he doesn't want it to end. Because for the first time in months, in years, his whole life, perhaps, Henry doesn't feel cursed at all. For the first time, he feels seen.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue