“All four of us were young and undaunted and our smiles were so strong that it made me smile even then on the couch, with a kind of loss.”

“I looked at myself in that window, oblivious to all the people around me and I stared and smiled that particular smile. You know that smile that seems to knock you and tell you how pathetic you are? That's the smile I was smiling.”

“Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.”

“Liesel observed the strangeness of her foster father's eyes. They were made of kindness, and silver.”

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

“Warily, she dares to allow me a smile. "It's okay. It's just...I'm not too good at talking to people." She looks away again as her shyness smothers her. "So, do you think it'd be all right if we don't talk?”

“Together, they would watch everything that was so carefully planned collapse, and they would smile at the beauty of destruction.”