“She kept watching the words. ”

“He switched off the light, came back and sat in the chair. In the darkness, Liesel kept her eyes open. She was watching the words.”

“Did you learn?"The face in the corner watched the flames. "I did." There was a considerable pause. "Until I was nine. At that age, my mother sold the music studio and stopped teaching. SHe kept only the one instrument but gave up on me not long after I resisted the learning. I was foolish.""No," Papa said. "You were a boy.”

“She wanted none of those days to end, and it was always with disappointment that she watched the darkness stride forward. ”

“He watched them grow, until eventually, great forests of words had risen throughout Germany.... It was a nation of farmed thoughts.”

“The best word shakers were the ones who understood the true power of words. They were the ones who could climb the highest. One such word shaker was a small, skinny girl. She was renowned as the best word shaker of her region because she knew how powerless a person could be WITHOUT words.”

“She could smell the pages. She could almost taste the words as they stacked up around her.”