The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

by

V. E. Schwab

Adeline “Addie” LaRue Character Analysis

Addie, the novel’s 23-year-old protagonist, is fiercely independent—she longs for a life of adventure outside of Villon-sur-Sarthe, her small French village. Addie longs to be like Estele, an eccentric old woman who prays to “the old gods,” loves nature, and eschews Villon’s social norms. In 1714, Addie flees Villon to escape an undesirable marriage. She prays to Estele’s old gods for “freedom” and “more time.” Luc, a demonic entity, answers Addie’s prayers and grants Addie immortality—but she must give him her soul once she tires of life. Addie immediately realizes that Luc’s deal has a major caveat: it makes everyone she encounters—including her mother and beloved father—forget her immediately. Addie copes with her loneliness by becoming a muse to various artists, thus allowing the “idea” of her to live on in their art. She never fails to find meaning in life, even when things get tough. Luc is Addie’s only constant, and this leads to a decades-long romance. Addie breaks things off, though, suspecting that Luc’s supposed “love” is just another attempt to possess her soul. In 2014, Addie’s world changes when she meets Henry, who remembers her. They fall in love, and Addie learns that Henry remembers her because he, too, has made a deal with Luc. Luc later returns, explaining that he let Addie and Henry meet to teach Addie that mortal love isn’t worth the pain it inevitably causes (Henry’s deal only lasts for one year, at which time he will die). Unbeknownst to Henry, Addie agrees to be Luc’s lover until he tires of her. In exchange, Luc will spare Henry’s life. Addie’s sacrifice devastates Henry, but he keeps his promise to remember her when she is gone, immortalizing her story in his first novel.

Adeline “Addie” LaRue Quotes in The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

The The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue quotes below are all either spoken by Adeline “Addie” LaRue or refer to Adeline “Addie” LaRue. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Memory and Meaning  Theme Icon
).
Part 1, Chapter 1 Quotes

She hates this part. She shouldn’t have lingered. Should have been out of sight as well as out of mind, but there’s always that nagging hope that this time, it will be different, that this time, they will remember.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Toby Marsh
Page Number: 19
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 3 Quotes

And by the time they return home to Villon, she will already be a different version of herself. A room with the windows all thrown wide, eager to let in the fresh air, the sunlight, the spring.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Jean LaRue (Addie’s Father)
Page Number: 26
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 4 Quotes

Her mother wishes she was more like Isabelle Therault, sweet and kind and utterly incurious, content to keep her eyes down upon her knitting instead of looking up at clouds, instead of wondering what’s around the bend, over the hills.

But Adeline does not know how to be like Isabelle.

She does not want to be like Isabelle.

She wants only to go to Le Mans, and once there, to watch the people and see the art all around, and taste the food, and discover things she hasn’t heard of yet.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Jean LaRue (Addie’s Father), Marthe LaRue (Addie’s Mother), Isabelle Therault
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

Estele’s face darkens. “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.” She leans over Adeline, casting her in shadow. “And no matter how desperate or dire, never pray to the gods that answer after dark.”

Related Characters: Estele (speaker), Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Jean LaRue (Addie’s Father), Marthe LaRue (Addie’s Mother)
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 5 Quotes

There was no danger in it, no reproach, not when she was young. All girls are prone to dreaming. She will grow out of it, her parents say—but instead, Adeline feels herself growing in, holding tighter to the stubborn hope of something more.

The world should be getting larger. Instead, she feels it shrinking, tightening like chains around her limbs as the flat lines of her own body begin to curve out against it, and suddenly the charcoal beneath her nails is unbecoming, as is the idea that she would choose her own company over Arnaud’s or George’s, or any man who might have her.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Jean LaRue (Addie’s Father), Marthe LaRue (Addie’s Mother), George Caron
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 8 Quotes

Adeline had wanted to be a tree. To grow wild and deep, belong to no one but the ground beneath her feet, and the sky above, just like Estele. It would be an unconventional life, and perhaps a little lonely, but at least it would be hers. She would belong to no one but herself.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Estele, Roger
Related Symbols: Trees
Page Number: 39
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 11 Quotes

The rise isn’t worth the fall.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Toby Marsh
Page Number: 56
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 13 Quotes

This is how she would remember him. Not by the sad unknowing in his eyes, or the grim set of his jaw as he led her to church, but by the things he loved. By the way he showed her how to hold a stick of charcoal, coaxing shapes and shades with the weight of her hand. The songs and stories, the sights from the five summers she went with him to market, when Adeline was old enough to travel, but not old enough to cause a stir.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Jean LaRue (Addie’s Father)
Related Symbols: Art
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 2 Quotes

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? It’s like that Zen koan, the one about the tree falling in the woods. If no one heard it, did it happen? If a person cannot leave a mark, do they exist?

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Sam
Page Number: 103
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 7 Quotes

“You think it will get easier,” he says. “It will not. 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.”

Related Characters: Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger (speaker), Adeline “Addie” LaRue
Page Number: 133
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 10 Quotes

The first shot may have been fired back in Villon, when he stole her life along with her soul, but this, this, is the beginning of the war.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger
Page Number: 150
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 4 Quotes

Remy nods thoughtfully. “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.”

Related Characters: Remy Laurent (speaker), Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger
Page Number: 179
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 9 Quotes

Mischief glints in those green eyes. “I think you’ll find my word won’t fade as fast as yours.” He shrugs. “They will not remember you, of course. But ideas are so much wilder than memories, so much faster to take root.”

Related Characters: Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger (speaker), Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Madame Geoffrin
Related Symbols: Art
Page Number: 210
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4, Chapter 1 Quotes

His heart has a draft.

It lets in light.

It lets in storms.

It lets in everything.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Henry Strauss, Tabitha Masters
Page Number: 225
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4, Chapter 11 Quotes

“Three hundred years,” she whispers. “And you can still find something new.” When they step out the other side, blinking in the afternoon light, she is already pulling him on, out of the Sky and on to the next archway, the next set of doors, eager to discover whatever waits beyond.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue (speaker), Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Henry Strauss
Related Symbols: Art
Page Number: 268
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 5, Chapter 1 Quotes

He glances over his shoulder, a coy grin playing over his lips. “For all her talk of freedom, she was so lonely in the end.” Addie shakes her head. “No.” “You should have been here with her,” he says. “Should have eased her pain when she was ill. Should have laid her down to rest. You owed her that.” Addie draws back as if struck. “You were so selfish, Adeline. And because of you, she died alone.”

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue (speaker), Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger (speaker), Estele
Related Symbols: Trees
Page Number: 303
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 5, Chapter 3 Quotes

“I can show you,” he purrs, letting the light settle in his palm. “Say the word, and I will lay your own soul bare before you. Surrender, and I promise, the last thing you see will be the truth.”

There it is again.

One time salt, and the next honey, and each designed to cover poison. Addie looks at the ring, lets herself linger on it one last time, and then forces her gaze up past the light to meet the dark.

“You know,” she says, “I think I’d rather live and wonder.”

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue (speaker), Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger (speaker)
Related Symbols: Addie’s Wooden Ring
Page Number: 313
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 5, Chapter 7 Quotes

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.

Because two blocks away, in that small studio over the café, there is an artist, and on one of his pages, there is a drawing, and it is of her. And now Addie closes her eyes, and tips her head back, and smiles, hope swelling in her chest. A crack in the walls of this unyielding curse. She thought she’d studied every inch, but here, a door, ajar onto a new and undiscovered room.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Madame Geoffrin, Matteo
Related Symbols: Art
Page Number: 327
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 1 Quotes

“Put it on, and I will come.” Luc leans back in his chair, the night breeze blowing through those raven curls. “There,” he says. “Now we are even.”

Related Characters: Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger (speaker), Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Jean LaRue (Addie’s Father)
Related Symbols: Addie’s Wooden Ring
Page Number: 366
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 5 Quotes

Whenever Addie feels herself forgetting, she presses her ear to his bare chest and listens for the drum of life, the drawing of breath, and hears only the woods at night, the quiet hush of summer. A reminder that he is a lie, that his face and his flesh are simply a disguise. That he is not human, and this is not love.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger
Page Number: 399
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 11 Quotes

“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.”

“You are thinking of possession.” He shrugs. “Are they so different? I have seen what humans do to things they love.”

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue (speaker), Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger (speaker), Henry Strauss
Page Number: 402
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 13 Quotes

Addie shakes her head. “You see only flaws and faults, weaknesses to be exploited. But humans are messy, Luc. That is the wonder of them. They live and love and make mistakes, and they feel so much.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue (speaker), Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Henry Strauss
Page Number: 408
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 16 Quotes

“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.”

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue (speaker), Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Henry Strauss
Page Number: 418
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue PDF

Adeline “Addie” LaRue Quotes in The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

The The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue quotes below are all either spoken by Adeline “Addie” LaRue or refer to Adeline “Addie” LaRue. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Memory and Meaning  Theme Icon
).
Part 1, Chapter 1 Quotes

She hates this part. She shouldn’t have lingered. Should have been out of sight as well as out of mind, but there’s always that nagging hope that this time, it will be different, that this time, they will remember.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Toby Marsh
Page Number: 19
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 3 Quotes

And by the time they return home to Villon, she will already be a different version of herself. A room with the windows all thrown wide, eager to let in the fresh air, the sunlight, the spring.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Jean LaRue (Addie’s Father)
Page Number: 26
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 4 Quotes

Her mother wishes she was more like Isabelle Therault, sweet and kind and utterly incurious, content to keep her eyes down upon her knitting instead of looking up at clouds, instead of wondering what’s around the bend, over the hills.

But Adeline does not know how to be like Isabelle.

She does not want to be like Isabelle.

She wants only to go to Le Mans, and once there, to watch the people and see the art all around, and taste the food, and discover things she hasn’t heard of yet.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Jean LaRue (Addie’s Father), Marthe LaRue (Addie’s Mother), Isabelle Therault
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

Estele’s face darkens. “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.” She leans over Adeline, casting her in shadow. “And no matter how desperate or dire, never pray to the gods that answer after dark.”

Related Characters: Estele (speaker), Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Jean LaRue (Addie’s Father), Marthe LaRue (Addie’s Mother)
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 5 Quotes

There was no danger in it, no reproach, not when she was young. All girls are prone to dreaming. She will grow out of it, her parents say—but instead, Adeline feels herself growing in, holding tighter to the stubborn hope of something more.

The world should be getting larger. Instead, she feels it shrinking, tightening like chains around her limbs as the flat lines of her own body begin to curve out against it, and suddenly the charcoal beneath her nails is unbecoming, as is the idea that she would choose her own company over Arnaud’s or George’s, or any man who might have her.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Jean LaRue (Addie’s Father), Marthe LaRue (Addie’s Mother), George Caron
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 8 Quotes

Adeline had wanted to be a tree. To grow wild and deep, belong to no one but the ground beneath her feet, and the sky above, just like Estele. It would be an unconventional life, and perhaps a little lonely, but at least it would be hers. She would belong to no one but herself.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Estele, Roger
Related Symbols: Trees
Page Number: 39
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 11 Quotes

The rise isn’t worth the fall.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Toby Marsh
Page Number: 56
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 13 Quotes

This is how she would remember him. Not by the sad unknowing in his eyes, or the grim set of his jaw as he led her to church, but by the things he loved. By the way he showed her how to hold a stick of charcoal, coaxing shapes and shades with the weight of her hand. The songs and stories, the sights from the five summers she went with him to market, when Adeline was old enough to travel, but not old enough to cause a stir.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Jean LaRue (Addie’s Father)
Related Symbols: Art
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 2 Quotes

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? It’s like that Zen koan, the one about the tree falling in the woods. If no one heard it, did it happen? If a person cannot leave a mark, do they exist?

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Sam
Page Number: 103
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 7 Quotes

“You think it will get easier,” he says. “It will not. 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.”

Related Characters: Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger (speaker), Adeline “Addie” LaRue
Page Number: 133
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 10 Quotes

The first shot may have been fired back in Villon, when he stole her life along with her soul, but this, this, is the beginning of the war.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger
Page Number: 150
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 4 Quotes

Remy nods thoughtfully. “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.”

Related Characters: Remy Laurent (speaker), Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger
Page Number: 179
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 9 Quotes

Mischief glints in those green eyes. “I think you’ll find my word won’t fade as fast as yours.” He shrugs. “They will not remember you, of course. But ideas are so much wilder than memories, so much faster to take root.”

Related Characters: Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger (speaker), Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Madame Geoffrin
Related Symbols: Art
Page Number: 210
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4, Chapter 1 Quotes

His heart has a draft.

It lets in light.

It lets in storms.

It lets in everything.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Henry Strauss, Tabitha Masters
Page Number: 225
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4, Chapter 11 Quotes

“Three hundred years,” she whispers. “And you can still find something new.” When they step out the other side, blinking in the afternoon light, she is already pulling him on, out of the Sky and on to the next archway, the next set of doors, eager to discover whatever waits beyond.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue (speaker), Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Henry Strauss
Related Symbols: Art
Page Number: 268
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 5, Chapter 1 Quotes

He glances over his shoulder, a coy grin playing over his lips. “For all her talk of freedom, she was so lonely in the end.” Addie shakes her head. “No.” “You should have been here with her,” he says. “Should have eased her pain when she was ill. Should have laid her down to rest. You owed her that.” Addie draws back as if struck. “You were so selfish, Adeline. And because of you, she died alone.”

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue (speaker), Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger (speaker), Estele
Related Symbols: Trees
Page Number: 303
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 5, Chapter 3 Quotes

“I can show you,” he purrs, letting the light settle in his palm. “Say the word, and I will lay your own soul bare before you. Surrender, and I promise, the last thing you see will be the truth.”

There it is again.

One time salt, and the next honey, and each designed to cover poison. Addie looks at the ring, lets herself linger on it one last time, and then forces her gaze up past the light to meet the dark.

“You know,” she says, “I think I’d rather live and wonder.”

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue (speaker), Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger (speaker)
Related Symbols: Addie’s Wooden Ring
Page Number: 313
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 5, Chapter 7 Quotes

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.

Because two blocks away, in that small studio over the café, there is an artist, and on one of his pages, there is a drawing, and it is of her. And now Addie closes her eyes, and tips her head back, and smiles, hope swelling in her chest. A crack in the walls of this unyielding curse. She thought she’d studied every inch, but here, a door, ajar onto a new and undiscovered room.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Madame Geoffrin, Matteo
Related Symbols: Art
Page Number: 327
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 1 Quotes

“Put it on, and I will come.” Luc leans back in his chair, the night breeze blowing through those raven curls. “There,” he says. “Now we are even.”

Related Characters: Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger (speaker), Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Jean LaRue (Addie’s Father)
Related Symbols: Addie’s Wooden Ring
Page Number: 366
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 5 Quotes

Whenever Addie feels herself forgetting, she presses her ear to his bare chest and listens for the drum of life, the drawing of breath, and hears only the woods at night, the quiet hush of summer. A reminder that he is a lie, that his face and his flesh are simply a disguise. That he is not human, and this is not love.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger
Page Number: 399
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 11 Quotes

“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.”

“You are thinking of possession.” He shrugs. “Are they so different? I have seen what humans do to things they love.”

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue (speaker), Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger (speaker), Henry Strauss
Page Number: 402
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 13 Quotes

Addie shakes her head. “You see only flaws and faults, weaknesses to be exploited. But humans are messy, Luc. That is the wonder of them. They live and love and make mistakes, and they feel so much.

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue (speaker), Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Henry Strauss
Page Number: 408
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 16 Quotes

“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.”

Related Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue (speaker), Luc/The Darkness/The Stranger, Henry Strauss
Page Number: 418
Explanation and Analysis: