“The point is, it didn’t really matter what the book was about. It was what it meant that was important.”

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

“Somewhere, far down, there was an itch in his heart, but he made it a point not to scratch it. He was afraid of what might come leaking out.”

“I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. 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.”

“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.”

“Liesel and Papa made their way through the book, this man was traveling to Amsterdam on business and the snow was shivering outside. The girl loved that- the shivering snow. "That's exactly what it does when it comes down," she told Hans Hubermann.”

“So I saw that there was only me. There was only me who could worry about what was happening here, inside these walls of my life. Other people had their own worlds to worry about, and in the end, they had to fend for themselves, just like us.”