“Often I wish this would all be over, Liesel, but then somehow you do something like walk down the basement steps with a snowman in your hands.”

“***CHRISTMAS GREETINGS FROM*** MAX VANDENBURGOften I wish this would all be over, Liesel, but then somehow you do something like walk down the basement steps with a snowman in your hands. ”

“There was an itchy lung for a last cigarette and an immense, magnetic pull toward the basement, for the girl who was his daughter and was writing a book down there he hoped to read one day. Liesel. His soul whispered it as I carried him. But there was no Liesel in that house. Not for me, anyway.”

“It was the beginning of the greatest Christmas ever. Little food. No presents. But there was a snowman in their basement.”

“You should give it to Max, Liesel. See if you can leave it on the bedside table, like all the other things." Liesel watched him as if he'd gone insane. "How, though?" Lightly, he tapped her skull with his knuckles. "Memorize it. Then write it down for him.”

“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.”

“And please," Ilsa Hermann advised her, "don't punish yourself, like you said you would. Don't be like me, Liesel.”