Markus Zusak

“The only sound I'll hear after that will be my own breathing, and the sound of the smell, of my footsteps”

“Det enda jag hör efter det är min egna andhämtning och ljudet av lukten, av mina egna steg”

“I tell me:Let these words be footsteps, because I have a long way to travel. Let the words walk the dirty streets. Let them make their way across the crying grass. Let them stand and breathe and pant smoke in winter evenings. And when they're tired and have fallen down, let them buckle to their feet ad arc around me, watchful.I want these words to be actions.Give them flesh and bones, I say to me, and eyes of hunger and desire, so they can write and fight me through the night.”

“Ella era una ladrona de libros.Él asaltaba el cielo.”

“Hasta la muerte tiene corazón.”

“We grew up together, which is the only reason we’re friends. He’s actually got a lot of other acquaintances, too, for a few reasons. The first is that he plays soccer in winter and has mates from there. The second and main reason is that he carries on like an idiot. Have you ever noticed that idiots have a lot of friends? It’s just an observation.”

“For a moment, I panic. It's that feeling of falling when you know without question, that you've lost control of your car, or made a mistake that's beyond repair. 'What do I do now?' I ask desperately. 'Tell me! What do I do now?'He remains calm.He looks at me closely and says, 'Keep living, Ed... It's only the pages that stop here.”

“When death tells a story yo really have to listen”

“¿HAY ALGO PEOR QUEUN CHICO QUE TE ODIE?Un chico que te quiera.”

“Por encima de todo, la ladrona de libros ansiaba volver al sótano a escribir o leer su historia una vez más. Ahora que lo pienso, sin duda se le veía en la cara. Se moría de ganas de reencontrar esa seguridad, ese hogar, pero era incapaz de moverse. Además, el sótano ya no existía. Era parte del paisaje desvastado.”

“DEFINICIÓN NO ENCONTRADA EN EL DICCIONARIONo irse: acto de confianza y amor, a menudo descifrado por los niños.”

“So many colors.They keep triggering inside me. They harstinker my memory. I see them tall in their heaps, allmounted on top of each other. There is air like plastic, a horizon like setting glue. There areskies manufactured by people, punctured and leaking, and there are soft, coal-colored clouds,beating like black hearts.And then.There is death.Making his way through all of it.On the surface: unflappable, unwavering.Below: unnerved, untied, and undone.”

“Everything was good.But it was awful, too.”

“... And the boy whose hair remained the color of lemons forever.”

“Und es sollte mir einmal mehr beweisen, dass eine Gelegenheit geradewegs zu einer anderen führt, genauso wie ein Risiko ein weiteres nach sich zieht, ein Leben ein anderes und ein Tod den nächsten.”

“It’s all very well for such a person to whine and moan and criticize other family members, but they won’t let anyone else do it. That’s when you get your back up and show loyalty.”

“On the other hand, you're a human--you should understand self-obsession.”

“By the way--I like this human idea of the grim reaper. I like the scythe. It amuses me.”

“On June 23, 1942, there was a group of French Jews in a German prison, on Polish soil. The first person I took was close to the door, his mind racing, then reduced to pacing, then slowing down, slowing down....Please believe me when I tell you that I picked up each would that day as if it were newly born. I even kissed a few weary, poisoned cheeks. I listened to their last, gasping cries. Their vanishing words. I watched their love visions and freed them from their fear.I took them all away, and if there was a time I needed distraction, this was it. In complete desolation, I looked at the world above. I watched the sky as it turned from silver to gray to the color of rain. Even the clouds were trying to get away.Sometimes I imagined how everything looked above those clouds, knowing without question that the sun was blond, and the endless atmosphere was a giant blue eye.They ere French, they were Jews, and they were you.”

“The scrawled words of practice stood magnificently on the wall by the stairs, jagged and childlike and sweet. They looked on as both the hidden Jew and the girl slept, hand to shoulder. They breathed.German and Jewish lungs.”

“He was tall and abrupt and exactly the kind of guy you wanted to be walking the streets with.”

“It’s probably fair to say that in all the years of Hitler’s reign, no person was able to serve the Führer as loyally as me. A human doesn’t have a heart like mine. The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in the right place at the right time. The consequence of this is that I’m always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both. Still, they have one thing I envy.Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.”

“Is there cowardice with the acknowledgement of fear?”

“Rudy handed it back. "Speaking of which, I think we're both slightly in for it when we get home. You especially.""Why me?""You know- your mama.""What about her?" Liesel was exercising the blatant right of every person who's ever belonged to a family. It's all very well for such a person to whine and moan and criticize other family members, but they won't let anyone else do it. That's when you get your back up and show loyalty.”

“One seat, two men, a short argument, and me.It kills me sometimes, how people die.”

“I even move out onto the front porch and see my own limited view of the world. I want to take that world, and for the first time ever, I feel like I can do it. I’ve survived everything I’ve had to so far. I’m still standing here.”

“He’s fighting the world.” And now, I watch as the underdog in the middle of the circle fights on and stands and falls and returns to his haunches and feet and fights on again. He fights on, no matter how hard he hits the ground. He gets up. Some people cheer him. Others laugh now and rubbish him.Feeling comes out of me.I watch.My eyes swell, and burn.“Can he win?”I ask it, and now, I too cannot take my eyes off the boy in the circle.”

“Lua and Marie are holding hands.They look like they’re so happy, just inside this moment, watching the kids and the lights on their old fibro house.Lua kisses her.Just softly on the lips.And she kisses back.Sometimes people are beautiful.Not in looks.Not in what they say.Just in what they are.”

“He must have loved her so incredibly hard. So hard that he would never ask for her lips again and would go to his grave without them.”

“As it turned out, Ilsa Hermann not only gave Liesel Meminger a book that day. She also gave her a reason to spend time in the basement, her favorite place, first with Papa, then Max. She gave her a reason to write her own words, to see that words had also brought her to life."Don't punish yourself", she heard her say again, but there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing.”

“The sun stirs the earth. Around and around, it stirs us like stew.”

“He was hanging from one of the rafters in a laundry up near Frau Diller's. Another human pendulum. Another clock, stopped.”

“He left Himmel Street wearing his hangover and a suit.”

“A NICE THOUGHT One was a book thief.The other stole the sky.”

“They ignore the reality that a new version of the same old problem will be waiting at the end of the trip—the relative you cringe to kiss.”

“The conversation of bullets.”

“It would be nice to say that after this small breakthrough, neither Liesel nor Max dreamed their bad visions again. It would be nice but untrue. The nightmares arrived like they always did, much like the best player in the opposition when you’ve heard rumors that he might be injured or sick—but there he is, warming up with the rest of them, ready to take the field. Or like a timetabled train, arriving at a nightly platform, pulling the memories behind it on a rope. A lot of dragging. A lot of awkward bounces.”

“There was once a strange, small man. He decided three important details about his life:1. He would part his hair from the opposite side to everyone else.2. He would make himself a small, strange mustache.3. He would one day rule the world....Yes, the Fuhrer decided that he would rule the world with words.”

“Todo el mundo sabe que una bola de nieve en la cara es el comienzo perfecto de una amistad duradera.”

“Cuando empezó a escribir su historia, se preguntó por el momento exacto en que los libros y las palabras no sólo comenzaban a tener algún significado, sino que lo significaban todo.”

“I guess that’s the beauty of books. When they finish they don’t really finish.”

“I've wandered through the real world, and written myself through the darkness of the streets inside me. I see people walking through the city and wonder where they've been, and what the moments of their lives have done to them. If they're anything like me, their moments have held them up and shot them down.Sometimes I just survive.But sometimes I stand on the rooftop of my existence, arms stretched out, begging for more.That's when the stories show up in me.They find me all the time.They're made of underdogs and fighters. They're made of hunger and desire and trying to live decent.The only trouble is, I don't know which of those stories comes first.Maybe they all just merge into one.We'll see, I guess.I'll let you know when I decide.”

“And when we finally stood up and turned to face the world, I could feel something climbing through me. I could feel it on its hands and knees inside me, rising up, rising up - and I smiled.I smiled, thinking, The hunger, because I knew it all too well.The hunger.The desire.Then, slowly, as we walked on, I felt the beauty of it, and I could taste it, like words inside my mouth.”

“I could smell something. Fear.I could taste it now.It tasted like blood in my mouth, and I could feel it slide through me and open me up when I saw him ...”

“Something I'd like to be perfect at? ... Loving you,' I said. The words climbed from my mouth. 'I'd want to be perfect at loving you.”

“We expressed love for this dog by ... knowing without showing that we cared for him.”

“EGY DEFINÍCIÓ, AMIT NEM TALÁLTOK MEG A SZÓTÁRBAN:Nem elmenni: A bizalom és szeretett aktusa,amit a gyerekek szinte mindig megértenek.”

“It's about glowing lights and small things that are big.”

“Disbelief held me down inside my footsteps, making my body heavy but my heart wild.”

“As I make my way through, I feel okayness reaching through me.The funny thing is that okayness is not a real word. It's not in the dictionary.But it's in me.”