“
Deep in the meadow, hidden far away
A cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray
Forget your woes and let your troubles lay
And when it's morning again, they'll wash away
Here it's safe, here it's warm
Here the daisies guard you from every harm
Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true
Here is the place where I love you.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
“
Rue, who when you ask her what she loves most in the world, replies, of all things, “Music.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
“
Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives--or to find strength in a very long one.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?
”
”
V.E. Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
...it is sad, of course, to forget.
But it is a lonely thing, to be forgotten.
To remember when no one else does.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Because time is cruel to all, and crueler still to artists. Because visions weakens, and voices wither, and talent fades.... Because happiness is brief, and history is lasting, and in the end... everyone wants to be remembered
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Three words, large enough to tip the world. I remember you.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
A dreamer,” scorns her mother.
“A dreamer,” mourns her father.
“A dreamer,” warns Estele.
Still, it does not seem such a bad word.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
There is a defiance in being a dreamer
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
I want to do something, right here, right now, to shame them, to make them accountable, to show the Capitol that whatever they do or force us to do there is a part of every tribute they can't own. That Rue was more than a piece in their Games. And so am I.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
“
Blink, and the years fall away like leaves.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Nothing is all good or all bad,” she says. “Life is so much messier than that.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
What she needs are stories.
Stories are a way to preserve one's self. To be remembered. And to forget.
Stories come in so many forms: in charcoal, and in song, in paintings, poems, films. And books.
Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Blink and you’re twenty-eight, and everyone else is now a mile down the road, and you’re still trying to find it, and the irony is hardly lost on you that in wanting to live, to learn, to find yourself, you’ve gotten lost.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Stories are a way to preserve one's self. To be remembered. And to forget.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Don't you remember, she told him then, when you were nothing but shadow and smoke?
Darling, he'd said in his soft, rich way, I was the night itself.
”
”
Victoria 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?
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Do you know how to live three hundred years?” she says. And when he asks how, she smiles. “The same way you live one. A second at a time.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
His heart has a draft. It lets in light. It lets in storms. It lets in everything.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
But a life without art, without wonder, without beautiful things—she would go mad. She has gone mad.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
It is just a storm, he tells himself, but he is tired of looking for shelter. It is just a storm, but there is always another waiting in its wake.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
That time always ends a second before you’re ready.
That life is the minutes you want minus one.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
But I feel as if I did know Rue, and she'll always be with me. Everything beautiful brings her to mind. I see her in the yellow flowers that grow in the Meadow by my house. I see her in the Mockingjays that sing in the trees. But most of all, I see her in my sister, Prim.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2))
“
But this is how you walk to the end of the world. This is how you live forever. Here is one day, and here is the next, and the next, and you take what you can, savor every stolen second, cling to every moment, until it’s gone.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
You know,” she’d said, “they say people are like snowflakes, each one unique, but I think they’re more like skies. Some are cloudy, some are stormy, some are clear, but no two are ever quite the same.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Do not mistake this kindness. I simply want to be the one who breaks you.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
And there in the dark, he asks if it was really worth it.
Were the instants of joy worth the stretches of sorrow?
Were the moments of beauty worth the year of pain?
And she turns her head, and looks at him, and says 'Always.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Déjà vu. Déjà su. Déjà vécu.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
They teach you growing up that you are only one thing at a time—angry, lonely, content—but he’s never found that to be true. He is a dozen things at once. He is lost and scared and grateful, he is sorry and happy and afraid.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
I am stronger than your god and older than your devil. I am the darkness between stars, and the roots beneath the earth. I am promise, and potential, and when it comes to playing games, i divine the rules, I set the pieces, and I choose when to play.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
The old gods may be great, but they are neither kind nor merciful. They are fickle, unsteady as moonlight on water, or shadows in a storm. If you insist on calling them, take heed: be careful what you ask for, be willing to pay the price. And no matter how desperate or dire, never pray to the gods that answer after dark.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Never pray to the gods that answer after dark.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Adeline has decided she would rather be a tree, like Estele. If she must grow roots, she would rather be left to flourish wild instead of pruned, would rather stand alone, allowed to grow beneath the open sky.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Humans are so ill-equipped for peace.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Then, in my most careful handwriting, come all the details it would be a crime to forget. Lady licking Prim's cheek. My father's laugh. Peeta's father with the cookies. The colour of Finnick's eyes. What Cinna could do with a length of silk. Boggs reprogramming the Holo. Rue poised on her toes, arms slightly extended, like a bird about to take flight. On and on. We seal the pages with salt water and promises to live well to make their death count.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
“
The first mark she left upon the world, long before she knew the truth, that ideas are so much wilder than memories, that they long and look for ways of taking root
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Once I saw Desjardins’ house, I hated him even more. It was a huge mansion on the other side of the Tuileries, on the rue des Pyramids.
“Pyramids Road?” Sadie said. “Obvious, much?”
“Maybe he couldn’t find a place on Stupid Evil Magician Street,” I suggested.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Red Pyramid (The Kane Chronicles, #1))
“
But if you only walk in other people's steps, you cannot make your own way. You cannot leave a mark.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Live long enough, and you learn how to read a person. To ease them open like a book, some passages underlined and others hidden between the lines.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
When Rome burned, the emperor's cats still expected to be fed on time.
”
”
Seanan McGuire (Rosemary and Rue (October Daye, #1))
“
Listen to me. Life can feel very long sometimes, but in the end, it goes so fast. You better live a good life.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
I remember seeing that picture and realizing that photographs weren’t real. There’s no context, just the illusion that you’re showing a snapshot of a life, but life isn’t snapshots, it’s fluid. So photos are like fictions. I loved that about them. Everyone thinks photography is truth, but it’s just a very convincing lie.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Take your echoes and pretend they are a voice.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Dine with me,” Luc says as winter gives way to spring.
“Dance with me,” he says as a new year begins.
“Be with me,” he says, at last, as one decade slips into the next
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
There's no point in comforting words, in telling her she'll be all right. She's no fool. Her hand reaches out and I clutch it like a lifeline. As if it's me who's dying instead of Rue.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
“
March is such a fickle month. It is the seam between winter and spring—though seam suggests an even hem, and March is more like a rough line of stitches sewn by an unsteady hand, swinging wildly between January gusts and June greens. You don’t know what you’ll find, until you step outside.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
I'm very hard to catch," says Rue. "And if they can't catch me, they can't kill me. So don't count me out.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
“
If she must grow roots, she would rather be left to flourish wild instead of pruned, would rather stand alone, allowed to grow beneath the open sky. Better that than firewood, cut down just to burn in someone else’s hearth.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Other people would call him sensitive, but it is more than that. The dial is broken, the volume turned all the way up. Moments of joy registered as brief, but ecstatic. Moments of pain stretched long and unbearably loud.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
The day passes like a sentence.
The sun falls like a scythe.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
If anything attacked us, we could just panic at it until it went away.
”
”
Seanan McGuire (Rosemary and Rue (October Daye, #1))
“
The vexing thing about time,” he says, “is that it’s never enough. Perhaps a decade too short, perhaps a moment. But a life always ends too soon.
”
”
Victoria 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.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
But it is a lonely thing, to be forgotten, To remember when know one else does.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Spells are for witches, and witches are too often burned.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Small places make for small lives. And some people are fine with that. They like knowing where to put their feet. But if you only walk in other people’s steps, you cannot make your own way. You cannot leave a mark.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Do you think a life has any value if one doesn’t leave some mark upon the world?
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
art is about ideas. And ideas are wilder than memories. They're like weeds, always finding their way up.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Lady licking Prim's cheek. My father's laugh. Peeta's father with the cookies. The color of Finnick's eyes. What Cinna could do with a length of silk. Boggs reprogramming the Holo. Rue poised on her toes, arms slightly extended,like a bird about to take flight.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
“
I've been down by the stream collecting berries. Would you care for some?"
I would, actually, but I don't want to relent too soon. I do walk over and look at them. I've never seen this type before. No, I have. But not in the arena. These aren't Rue's berries, although they resemble them. Nor do they match any I learned about in training. I lean down and scoop up a few, rolling them between my fingers.
My father's voice comes back to me. "Not these, Katniss. Never these. They're nightlock. You'll be dead before they reach your stomach."
Just then the cannon fires. I whip around, expecting Peeta to collapseto the ground, but he only raises his eyebrows. The hoovercraft appears a hundred metres or so away.What's left of Foxface's emaciated body is lifted into the air.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
“
it’s amazing what you can learn when you have the time.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Even rocks wear away to nothing.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
I remember you.” Three words, large enough to tip the world.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
History is a thing designed in retrospect.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Easy to stay on the path when the road is straight and the steps are numbered.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
And then he whispers three words into her hair. “I love you,” he says, and Addie wonders if this is love, this gentle thing. If it is meant to be this soft, this kind. The difference between heat, and warmth. Passion, and contentment. “I love you too,” she says. She wants it to be true.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
All she knows is that she is tired, and he is the place she wants to rest. And that, somehow, she was happy. But it is not love.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
All right, I've been thinking, when life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade! Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life's manager!
Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man whose gonna burn your house down - with the lemons!
”
”
Portal 2
“
She said no, and learned how much the word was worth.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
It's our loot!" he yelled, standing on his tiptoes so he could get in Clarisse's face. "If you don't like it, you can kiss my quiver!
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #5))
“
If a person cannot leave a mark, do they exist?
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
She fell in love with the darkness many times, fell in love with a human once.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
I do not want to belong to someone else. I do not want to belong to anyone but myself. I want to be free. Free to live, and to find my own way, to love, or to be alone, but at least it is my choice, and I am so tired of not having choices, so scared of the years rushing past beneath my feet. I do not want to die as I’ve lived, which is no life at all.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
I've wanted you from the moment I first saw you in the museum. Before that. I wanted every part of you from the first time I felt you, your presence. I want you in the sky, and against the earth. I want to kiss you again, I want to touch you, I want to feel you in my arms and I want to hear you gasping my name when I'm inside you. I want all that, and I want it badly. Every time I look at you, I want it. So you're going to have to become used to that, Rue. It won't change."
(Christoff to Rue)
”
”
Shana Abe (The Smoke Thief (Drakon, #1))
“
Estelle used to call these the restless days, when the warmer-blooded gods began to stir, and the cold ones began to settle. When dreamers were most prone to bad ideas, and wanderers were likely to get lost.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Funny, how some people take an age to warm, and others simply walk into every room as if it’s home.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
A successful theft is an anonymous act. The absence of a mark.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
It was just so...permanent.
Choosing a class became choosing a discipline, and choosing a discipline became choosing a career, and choosing a career became choosing a life, and how was anyone supposed to do that, when you only had one?
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
To find a way, or make your own.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
history is something you look back on, not something you really feel at the time. In the moment, you're just... living.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Cats never listen. They’re dependable that way; when Rome burned, the emperor’s cats still expected to be fed on time.
”
”
Seanan McGuire (Rosemary and Rue (October Daye, #1))
“
I started to walk away, but she [Clarisse] called out, "Percy?"
"Yeah?"
"When you, uh, had that vision about your friends..."
"You were one of them," I promised, "Just don't tell anybody, okay? Or I'de have to kill you."
A faint smile flickered across her face "See you later."
"See you
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Demigod Files (Percy Jackson and the Olympians))
“
Here is a new kind of silence, rarer than the rest. The easy quiet of familiar spaces, of places that fill simply because you are not alone within them.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
The depth lies in the valleys where we seek her, and not upon the mountain-tops where she is found.
”
”
Edgar Allan Poe
“
I'm hard to catch. If they can't catch me they cant kill me. So don't count me out.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
“
When We Two Parted
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.
The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow—
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.
They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me—
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.
In secret we met—
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.
”
”
Lord Byron (Byron: Poetical Works)
“
Want is for children. If this were want, I would be rid of you by now. I would have forgotten you centuries ago,” he says, a bitter loathing in his voice. “This is need. And need is painful but patient. Do you hear me, Adeline? I need you. As you need me. I love you, as you love me.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Memories are stiff, but thoughts are freer things. They throw out roots, they spread and tangle, and come untethered from their source. They are clever, and stubborn, and perhaps--perhaps--they are in reach.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember; and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts...
There’s fennel for you, and columbines; there’s rue for you, and here’s some for me; we may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they wither’d all when my father died. They say he made a good end,— [Sings.]
“For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
Thought and afflictions, passion, hell itself, She turns to favor and to prettiness.
Song. And will a not come again? And will a not come again? No, no, he is dead; Go to thy deathbed; He never will come again. His beard was as white as snow, Flaxen was his poll. He is gone, he is gone, And we cast away moan. God ’a’ mercy on his soul.
”
”
William Shakespeare
“
There are days when she mourns the prospect of another year, another decade, another century. There are nights when she cannot sleep, moments when she lies awake and dreams of dying.
But then she wakes, and sees the pink and orange dawn against the clouds, or hears the lament of a lone fiddle, the music and the melody, and remembers there is such beauty in the world.
And she does not want to miss it—any of it.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Nothing is all good or all bad," she says. "Life is so much messier than that."
And there in the dark, he asks if it was really worth it.
Were the instants of joy worth the stretches of sorrow?
Were the moments of beauty worth the years of pain?
And she turns her head, and looks at him, and says, "Always.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
There is a rhythm to moving through the world alone.
You discover what you can and cannot live without, the simple necessities and small joys that define a life. Not food, not shelter, not the basic things a body needs—those are, for her, a luxury—but the things that keep you sane. That bring you joy. That make life bearable.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
You didn’t come.”
“You didn’t call.”
She looks down at their tangled hands. “Tell me, Luc,” she says. “Was any of it real?”
“What is real to you, Adeline? Since my love counts for nothing?”
“You are not capable of love.”
He scowls, his eyes flashing emerald. “Because I am not human? Because I do not wither and die?”
“No,” she says, drawing back her hand. “You are not capable of love because you cannot understand what it is to care for someone else more than yourself. If you loved me, you would have let me go by now.”
Luc flicks his fingers. “What nonsense,” he says. “It is because I love you that I won’t. Love is hungry. Love is selfish.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Her shadow stretches out ahead - too long, its edges already blurring - and small white flowers tumble from her hair, littering the ground like stars. A constellation left in her wake, almost like the one across her cheeks.
Seven freckles. One for every love she'd have, that's what Estele had said, when the girl was still young.
One for every life she'd lead.
One for every god watching over her.
Now they mock her, those seven marks. Promises. Lies. She's had no loves, she's lived no lives, she's met no gods, and now she is out of time.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
I know exactly how you feel," Schmendrick said eagerly. The unicorn looked at him out of dark, endless eyes, and he smiled nervously and looked at his hands. "It's a rare man who is taken for what he truly is," he said. "There is much misjudgment in the world. Now I knew you for a unicorn when I first saw you, and I know that I am your friend. Yet you take me for a clown, or a clod, or a betrayer, and so must I be if you see me so. The magic on you is only magic and will vanish as soon as you are free, but the enchantment of error that you put on me I must wear forever in your eyes. We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream. Still I have read, or heard it sung, that unicorns when time was young, could tell the difference 'twixt the two - the false shining and the true, the lips' laugh and the heart's rue.
”
”
Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn (The Last Unicorn, #1))
“
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.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Time moves so fucking fast.
Blink, and you’re halfway through school, paralyzed by the idea that whatever you choose to do, it means choosing not to do a hundred other things, so you change your major half a dozen times before finally ending up in theology, and for a while it seems like the right path, but that’s really just a reflex to the pride on your parents’ faces, because they assume they’ve got a budding rabbi, but the truth is, you have no desire to practice, you see the holy texts as stories, sweeping epics, and the more you study, the less you believe in any of it.
Blink, and you’re twenty-four, and you travel through Europe, thinking—hoping—that the change will spark something in you, that a glimpse of the greater, grander world will bring your own into focus. And for a little while, it does. But there’s no job, no future, only an interlude, and when it’s over, your bank account is dry, and you’re not any closer to anything.
Blink, and you’re twenty-six, and you’re called into the dean’s office because he can tell that your heart’s not in it anymore, and he advises you to find another path, and he assures you that you’ll find your calling, but that’s the whole problem, you’ve never felt called to any one thing. There is no violent push in one direction, but a softer nudge a hundred different ways, and now all of them feel out of reach.
Blink and you’re twenty-eight, and everyone else is now a mile down the road, and you’re still trying to find it, and the irony is hardly lost on you that in wanting to live, to learn, to find yourself, you’ve gotten lost.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
You want an ending," she says. "Then take my life when I am done with it. You can have my soul when I don't want it anymore."
The shadow tips his head, suddenly intrigued.
A smile - just like the smile in her drawings, askance, and full of secrets - crosses his mouth. And then he pulls her to him. A lover's embrace. he is smoke and skin, air and bone, and when his mouth presses against hers, the first thing she tastes is the turning of the seasons, the moment when dusk gives way to night. And then his kiss deepens. His teeth skim her bottom lip, and there is pain in the pleasure, followed by the copper taste of blood on her tongue.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
What about me?’ said Grantaire. ‘I’m here.’
‘You?’
‘Yes, me.’
‘You? Rally Republicans! You? In defence of principles, fire up hearts that have grown cold!’
‘Why not?’
‘Are you capable of being good for something?’
‘I have the vague ambition to be,’ said Grantaire.
‘You don’t believe in anything.’
‘I believe in you.’
‘Grantaire, will you do me a favour?’
‘Anything. Polish your boots.’
‘Well, don’t meddle in our affairs. Go and sleep off the effects of your absinthe.’
‘You’re heartless, Enjolras.’
‘As if you’d be the man to send to the Maine gate! As if you were capable of it!’
‘I’m capable of going down Rue des Grès, crossing Place St-Michel, heading off along Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, taking Rue de Vaugirard, passing the Carmelite convent, turning into Rue d’Assas, proceeding to Rue du Cherche-Midi, leaving the Military Court behind me, wending my way along Rue des Vieilles-Tuileries, striding across the boulevard, following Chaussée du Maine, walking through the toll-gate and going into Richefeu’s. I’m capable of that. My shoes are capable of that.’
‘Do you know them at all, those comrades who meet at Richefeu’s?'
‘Not very well. But we’re on friendly terms.’
‘What will you say to them?’
‘I’ll talk to them about Robespierre, of course! And about Danton. About principles.’
‘You?’
‘Yes, me. But I’m not being given the credit I deserve. When I put my mind to it, I’m terrific. I’ve read Prudhomme, I’m familiar with the Social Contract, I know by heart my constitution of the year II. “The liberty of the citizen ends where the liberty of another citizen begins.” Do you take me for a brute beast? I have in my drawer an old promissory note from the time of the Revolution. The rights of man, the sovereignty of the people, for God’s sake! I’m even a bit of an Hébertist. I can keep coming out with some wonderful things, watch in hand, for a whole six hours by the clock.’
‘Be serious,’ said Enjolras.
‘I mean it,’ replied Grantaire.
Enjolras thought for a few moments, and with the gesture of a man who had come to a decision, ‘Grantaire,’ he said gravely, ‘I agree to try you out. You’ll go to the Maine toll-gate.’
Grantaire lived in furnished lodgings very close to Café Musain. He went out, and came back five minutes later. He had gone home to put on a Robespierre-style waistcoat.
‘Red,’ he said as he came in, gazing intently at Enjolras. Then, with an energetic pat of his hand, he pressed the two scarlet lapels of the waistcoat to his chest.
And stepping close to Enjolras he said in his ear, ‘Don’t worry.’
He resolutely jammed on his hat, and off he went.
”
”
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)