Markus Zusak

“The bombs were coming-and so was I.”

“Five hundred souls. I carried them in my fingers, like suitcases. Or I'd throw them over my shoulder. It was only the the children I carried in my arms. ”

“My full name's Ed Kennedy. I'm nineteen. I'm an underage cab driver. I'm typical of many of the young men you see in this suburban outpost of the city -- not a whole lot of prospects or possibility. That aside, I read more books than I should, and I'm decidedly crap at sex and doing my taxes. Nice to meet you. ”

“She was a girl with a mountain to climb.”

“Rudy Steiner was scared of the book theif's kiss. He must have longed for it so much. He must have longed for it so much. 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.”

“But then, is there cowardice in the acknowledgment of fear? Is there cowardice in being glad that you lived?”

“The song was born on her breathe and died at her lips.”

“That was when the world wasn't so big and I could see everywhere. It was when my father was a hero and not a human.”

“My arms are killing me. I didn't know words could be so heavy.”

“I realize that nothing belongs to her anymore and she belongs to everything.”

“Death waits for no man - and if he does, he doesn't usually wait for very long.”

“One day, Liesel.' he said, 'you'll be dying to kiss me.”

“Oh, come on, Arthur.""I don't want to hear it, Andy.""Jesus Christ""He doesn't want to hear it, either.”

“Clearly," said Arthur,"you're an idiot- but you're our kind of idiot. Come on.”

“God. Twice I speak it. I say His name in a futile attempt to understand. "But it's not your job to understand." That's me who answers. God never says anything. You think you're the only one he never answers? "Your job is to..." And I stop listening to me, because to put it bluntly, I tire me.”

“It’s the leftover humans. The survivors. They’re the ones I can’t stand to look at, although on many occasions I still fail. I deliberately seek out the colors to keep my mind off them, but now and then, I witness the ones who are left behind, crumbling among the jigsaw puzzle of realization, despair, and surprises. They have punctured hearts. They have beaten lungs. Which in turn brings me to the subject I am telling you about tonight, or today, or whatever the hour and color. It’s the story of one of those perpetual survivors –an expert at being left behind.”

“It's impeccable how brutal the truth can be at times. You can only admire it. Usually, we walk around constantly believing ourselves. "I'm okay," we say. "I'm alright." But sometimes the truth arrives on you, and you can't get it off. That’s when you realize that sometimes it isn’t even an answer - it's a question. Even now, I wonder how much of my life is convinced.”

“She was battered and beaten up, and not smiling this time. Liesel could see it on her face. Blood leaked from her nose and licked at her lips. Her eyes had blackened. Cuts had opened up and a series of wounds were rising to the surface of her skin. All from the words. From Liesel's words.”

“Yes, I know it.In the darkness of my dark beating heart,I know. He'd have loved it alright.You see?Even Death Has A Heart.”

“Two weeks to change the world, fourteen days to destroy it.”

“I'm asking you, I'm begging you, could you please shut your mouth for just five minutes?"You can imagine the reaction. They ended up in the basement.”

“When I’m there, Rube’s eyes fire into mine. Make sure you get up, they tell me, and I nod, then jump up. The jacket’s off. My skin’s warm. My wolfish hair sticks up as always, nice and thick. I’m ready now. I’m ready to keep standing up, no matter what, I’m ready to believe that I welcome the pain and that I want it so much that I will look for it. I will seek it out. I’ll run to it and throw myself into it. I’ll stand in front of it in blind terror and let it beat me down and down till my courage hangs off me in rags. Then it will dismantle me and stand me up naked, beat me some more and my slaughter-blood will fly from my mouth and the pain will drink it, feel it, steal it and conceal it in the pockets of its guts and it will taste me. It will just keep standing me up, and I won’t let it know. I won’t tell it that I feel it. I won’t give it the satisfaction. No, the pain will have to kill me.”

“I just know that right now, we want to be proud. For once. We want to take the struggle and rise above it. We want to frame it, live it, survive it. We want to put it in our mouths and taste it and never forget it, because it makes us strong.”

“I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that's where they begin. Their great skills is their capacity to escalate.”

“I traveled the globe as always, handing souls to the conveyor belt of eternity.”

“The thrill of being ignored!”

“Can a wolfe be beautiful?”

“una prueba más de lo contradictorio que es el ser humano. Una pizca de bondad, una pizca de maldad y sólo falta añadirle agua.”

“Cómo no va a gustarle a alguien un hombre que no sólo se fija en los colores, sino que además los comenta.”

“He was waving. "Saukerl," she laughed, and as she held up her hand, she knew completely that he was simultaneously calling her a Saumensch. I think that's as close to love as eleven-year-olds can get.”

“He prefers not to ruin things with any more questions. What it is is what it is.”

“For Liesel Meminger, the early stages of 1942 could be summed up like this:She became thirteen years of age. Her chest was still flat. She had not yet bled. The young man from her basement was now in her bed.***Q&A***How did Max Vandenburg end up in liesel's bed? He fell.”

“Possibly the only good to come out of these nightmares was that it brought Hans Hubermann, her new papa, into the room, to soothe her, to love her. He came every night and sat with her. The first couple of times, he simply stayed - a stranger to kill the aloneness. A few nights after that, he whispered, "Shhh, I'm here, it's all right." After three weeks he held her. Trust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the brute strength of the man's gentleness, his thereness. The girl knew from the outset that Hans Hubermann would always appear midscream, and he would not leave. (36)”

“He lay with yellow hair and closed eyes, and the book thief ran toward him and fell down. She dropped the black book. "Rudy," she sobbed, "wake up...." She grabbed him by his shirt and gave him just the slightest disbelieving shake. "Wake up, Rudy," and now, as the sky went on heating and showering ash, Liesel was holding Rudy Steiner's shirt by the front. "Rudy, please." THe tears grappled with her face. "Rudy, please, wake up, Goddamn it, wake up, I love you. Come on, Rudy, come on, Jesse Owens, don't you know I love you, wake up, wake up, wake up....”

“Hair the color of lemons,'" Rudy read. His fingers touched the words. "You told him about me?"At first, Liesel could not talk. Perhaps it was the sudden bumpiness of love she felt for him. Or had she always loved him? It's likely. Restricted as she was from speaking, she wanted him to kiss her. She wanted him to drag her hand across and pull her over. It didn't matter where. Her mouth, her neck, her cheek. Her skin was empty for it, waiting.Years ago, when they'd raced on a muddy field, Rudy was a hastily assembled set of bones, with a jagged, rocky smile. In the trees this afternoon, he was a giver of bread and teddy bears. He was a triple Hitler Youth athletics champion. He was her best friend. And he was a month from his death.Of course I told him about you," Liesel said.”

“How about a kiss, Saumensch?"He stood waist-deep in the water for a few moments longer before climbing out and handing her the book. His pants clung to him, and he did not stop walking. In truth, I think he was afraid. Rudy Steiner was scared of the book thief's kiss. He must have longed for it so much. 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.”

“She stood up and took the book from him, and as he smiled over his shoulder at some other kids, she threw it away and kicked him as hard as she could in the vicinity of the groin.Well, as you might imagine, Ludwig Schmeikl certainly buckled, and on the way down, he was punched in the ear. When he landed, he was set upon. When he was set upon, he was slapped and clawed and obliterated by a girl who was utterly consumed with rage. His skin was so warm and soft. Her knuckles and fingernails were so frighteningly tough, despite their smallness.You Saukerl." Her voice, too, was able to scratch him. "You Arschloch. Can you spell Arschloch for me?”

“Sometimes you read a book so special that you want to carry it around with you for months after you've finished just to stay near it.”

“I like that every page in every book can have a gem on it. It's probably what I love most about writing—that words can be used in a way that's like a child playing in a sandpit, rearranging things, swapping them around. They're the best moments in a day of writing—when an image appears that you didn't know would be there when you started work in the morning.”

“Papa was a man with silver eyes, not dead ones. Papa was an accordion! But his bellows were all empty. Nothing went in and nothing came out.”

“Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes.”

“It was then that he also took the opportunity to say he was sorry that the Hubermann's son had not come home, In response, Papa told him that such things were out of their control. "After all," he said, "you should know it yourself--a young man is still a boy, and a boy sometimes has the right to be stubborn.”

“I'd rather chase the sun than wait for it.”

“...to swear with a ferocity that can only be described as a talent.”

“It's not a big thing, but I guess it's true--big things are often just small things that are noticed.”

“As always, she was carrying the washing. Rudy was carrying two buckets of cold water, or as he put it, two buckets of future ice.”

“She tore a page from the book and ripped it in half.Then a chapter.Soon, there was nothing but scraps of words littered between her legs and all around her. The words. Why did they have to exist? Without them, there wouldn't be any of this. Without words, the Führer was nothing. There would be no limping prisoners, no need for consolation or wordly tricks to make us feel better.What good were the words?She said it audibly now, to the orange-lit room. "What good are the words?”

“And they would all smile at the beauty of destruction.”

“I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.”

“Make no mistake, the woman had a heart. She had a bigger one that people would think. There was a lot in it, stored up, high in miles of hidden shelving. Remember that she was the woman with the instrument strapped to her body in the long, moon-slit night.”