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Don't make me happy. Please, don't fill me up and let me think that something good can come of any of this. Look at my bruises. Look at this graze. Do you see the graze inside me? Do you see it growing before your very eyes, eroding me? I don't want to hope for anything anymore. -- Markus Zusak
Within minutes, mounds of concrete and earth were stacked and piled. The streets were ruptured veins. Blood streamed till it was dried on the road, and the bodies were stuck there, like driftwood after the flood. -- Markus Zusak
A day merges through a multitude of shades and intonations, with each passing moment. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
Bold and bright, a trilogy of happiness would continue for a summer's duration and into autumn. It would then be brought abruptly to an end, for the brightness had shown suffering the way.
Hard times were coming.
Like a parade. -- Markus Zusak
[Mama's] voice was surprisingly calm and caring. As you can imagine, this worried the girl a great deal. She'd have preferred to hear them arguing. Whispering adults hardly inspired confidence. -- Markus Zusak
He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It's his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry. -- Markus Zusak
If you feel like it, come with me. I will tell you a story. -- Markus Zusak
The flyscreen door slammed behind me. My feet dragged. I reached each arm into the jacket. Warm sleeves. Crumpled collar. Hands in pockets. Okay. I walked. -- Markus Zusak
The flyscreen door is torn at the edges. Fraying. I open it and knock on the wood. The sound rhymes with my heartbeat. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
Group of Steiners and Liesel walked past some shop windows and the imposing town hall, which in later years would be chopped off at the knees and buried. -- Markus Zusak
The only think worse than a boy who hates you; a boy who loves you. -- Markus Zusak
Please, trust me, I most definitely can be cheerful. I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that's only the A's. Just don't ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me. -- Markus Zusak
Rosa Hubermann was sitting on the edge of the bed with her husband's accordion tied to her chest. Her fingers hovered above the keys. She did not move. She didn't ever appear to be breathing. -- Markus Zusak
At first, all is black and white.
Black on white.
That's where I'm walking, through pages.
These pages.
Sometimes it gets so that I have one foot in the pages and the words, and the other in what they speak of. -- Markus Zusak
The thrill of being ignored! -- Markus Zusak
Now he turned on to the side street, making his way to number thirty-three, resisting the urge to smile, resisting the urge to sob or even imagine the safety that might be awaiting him. He reminded himself that this was no time for hope. -- Markus Zusak
Mama's eyes were like pale blue cutouts, pasted to her face. -- Markus Zusak
In that one stolen second, I considered the Glebe girl. She entered my mind like a burglar, them vanished again, taking nothing. It was like the humiliation of the past had been dragged instantly from my back and left somewhere on the ground. -- Markus Zusak
If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter. -- Markus Zusak
Fear is shiny. Ruthless in the eyes. -- Markus Zusak
The Keys To Happiness
1.Finishing the Grave Digger's Handbook.
2.Escaping the ire of Santa Maria.
3.Recieving two books for Christmas. -- Markus Zusak
She places her hands around my neck and rests her head on my shoulder. I can smell the sex on her, and my hope is that she can smell the love on me. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
The city was dark except for the building lights that seemed to appear like sores - like bandaids had been ripped off to expose the city's skin. -- Markus Zusak
Nothing changed the fact that she was a lost, skinny child in another foreign place, with more foreign people. Alone. -- Markus Zusak
For two days I went about my business. I travelled the globe as always, handing souls to the conveyor belt of eternity. -- Markus Zusak
When we move apart, she looks at me again, till a small tear lifts itself up in her eye. It trips out to find a wrinkle and follows it down. -- Markus Zusak
Right. That's twenty-two fifty."
"Twenty-two fifty?" We can't hide our exasperation.
"Well, yeah - this is a classy joint, you know."
"That's obvious - the service is incredible. -- Markus Zusak
Not another word was said for more than an hour. They only walked home together with aching feet and tired hearts. -- Markus Zusak
The only sign of war was a cloud of dust migrating from east to west. It looked through the windows, trying to find a way inside, and as it simultaneously thickened and spread, it turned the trail of humans into apparitions. There were no people on the street anymore. They were rumors carrying bags. -- Markus Zusak
In a way, I wish I could be like that. You'd never worry or care about anything that really mattered. You'd be happy, in the same pitiful way someone like our friend Ritchie is. Nothing affects you, and you affect nothing. -- Markus Zusak
When life robs you, sometimes, you have to rob it back. -- Markus Zusak
The buildings appear to be glued together, mostly small houses and apartment blocks that looked nervous. There is murky snow spread out like carpet. There is concrete, empty hat-stand trees, and gray air. -- Markus Zusak
It felt as though the whole globe was dressed in snow. Like it has pulled it on, the way you pull on a sweater. Next to the train line, footprints were sunken to their shins. Trees wore blankets of ice.
As you may expect, someone has died. -- Markus Zusak
All told, she owned fourteen books, but she saw her story as being made up predominantly of ten of them. Of those ten, six were stolen, one showed up at the kitchen table, two were made for her by a hidden Jew, and one was delivered by a soft, yellow-dressed afternoon. -- Markus Zusak
He talked to people and fooled them into liking him, trusting him. He talked to them while he was killing them, torturing and turning the knife. It was only when there was no one to talk to that he whistled, which was why he did so after a murder ... -- Markus Zusak
The juggling comes to an end now, but the struggling does not. I have Liesel Meminger in one hand, Max Vandenburg in the other. Soon I will clap them together. Just give me a few pages. -- Markus Zusak
Where Hans Hubermann and Erik Vandenburg were ultimately united by music, Max and Liesel were held together by the quiet gathering of words. -- Markus Zusak
I wish I could hold up that knife and tear open the world. I'd slice it open and climb through to the next one. -- Markus Zusak
And then there's the sickness I feel from looking at legs I can't touch, or at lips that don't smile at me. Or hips that don't reach for me. And hearts that don't beat for me. -- Markus Zusak
I'm gonna hunt my life down and grab it. -- Markus Zusak
But you'll come and get me if he wakes up, won't you? Just make something up. Scream out like I've done something wrong. Start swearing at me. Everyone will believe it, don't worry. -- Markus Zusak
I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty and I wonder how the same can be both. -- Markus Zusak
He was hanging from one of the rafters in a laundry up near Frau Diller's. Another human pendulum. Another clock, stopped. -- Markus Zusak
She remembered her books in the moments of worst sorrow, especially the ones that were made for her and the one that saved her life. -- Markus Zusak
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, its alright." After three weeks, he held her. Trust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the brute strength of the man's gentleness, his thereness. -- Markus Zusak
Her wrinkles were like slander. Her voice was akin to a beating with a stick. -- Markus Zusak
Oh, how the clouds stumbled in and assembled stupidly in the sky.
Great obese clouds.
Dark and plump.
Bumping into each other. Apologizing. Moving on and finding room. -- Markus Zusak
I'm still standing here. Okay, it's a crummy front porch I stand on, cracked to shithouse, and who am I to say that the world isn't the same? -- Markus Zusak
When I picked him up originally, the boy's spirit was soft and cold, like ice-cream. He started melting in my arms. Then warming up completely. Healing. -- Markus Zusak
She was still clutching the book. She was holding desperately on to the words who had saved her life. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
I like the idea 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. -- Markus Zusak
If you ever write a book, I can only give you one piece of advice. Don't let your parents get involved. -- Markus Zusak
The horizon was beginning to charcoal. What was left of the blackness above was nothing now but a scribble, and disappearing fast. -- Markus Zusak
Maybe one morning I'll wake up and step outside of myself to look back at the old me lying dead among the sheets. -- Markus Zusak
The passengers slid out as if from a torn package. -- Markus Zusak
Many jocular comments followed, as did another onslaught of Heil Hitlering. You know, it actually makes me wonder if anyone ever lost an eye or injured a hand or wrist with all of that. You'd only need to be facing the wrong way at the wrong time, or stand marginally too close to another person. -- Markus Zusak
You hide a Jew. You pay. Somehow or other, you must. -- Markus Zusak
Late in February, she stood on Munich Street and watched a single giant cloud come over the hills like a white monster. It climbed the mountains. The sun was eclipsed, and in its place, a white beast with a gray heart watched the town. -- Markus Zusak
Personally, I quite like that. Such stupid gallantry.
Yes. I like that a lot. -- Markus Zusak
I try hard and aim big. People can hate or love my books but they can never accuse me of not trying. -- Markus Zusak
What someone says and what happened are usually two different things. -- Markus Zusak
Yes, I'm often reminded of her, and in one of my array of pockets, I have kept her story to retell. It is one of the small legion I carry, each one extraordinary in its own right. Each one an attempt - an immense leap of an attempt - to prove to me that you, and your human existence, are worth it. -- Markus Zusak
One good punch from Rube on me would send the sky into my head and the clouds into my lungs. I just always tried to stay up. -- Markus Zusak
A GUIDED TOUR OF SUFFERING: To your left, perhaps your right, perhaps even straight ahead, you find a small black room. In it sits a Jew. He is scum. He is starving. He is afraid. Please - try not to look away. -- Markus Zusak
It was the beginning of the greatest Christmas ever. Little food. No presents. But there was a snowman in their basement. -- Markus Zusak
The pages and the words are my world, spread out before your eyes and for your hand to touch. Vaguely, I can see you face looking down into me, as I look back. Do you see my eyes? -- Markus Zusak
I just want to write someone's favorite book. -- Markus Zusak
I walked home, seeing all my doubt from the other side. Have you ever seen that? Like when you go on holiday. On the way back, everything is the same but it looks a little different than it did on the way. It's because you're seeing it backwards. -- Markus Zusak
When death tells a story yo really have to listen -- Markus Zusak
Those souls are always light because more of them have been put out. More of them have already found their way to other places. This one was sent out by the breath of an accordion, the odd taste of champagne in summer, and the art of promise-keeping. -- Markus Zusak
Their heartbeats fought each other, a mess of rhythm. Liesel tried to eat hers down. The taste of heart was not too cheerful. -- Markus Zusak
I don't write poetry or short stories. I don't like to write articles usually. I tend to really only want to be focused on writing novels. It's one of the real advantages I've had over the years. I've only been good at one thing. It helps to be limited. -- Markus Zusak
He walked from one end of the basement to the other, the lamplight magnifying his shadow. It turned him into a giant on the wall, walking back and forth. When he stopped pacing, his shadow loomed behind him, watching. Someone was always watching. -- Markus Zusak
The words are spat through the phone line. They're loud and wet in my ear. "Y' big dickhead." She's lovely, isn't she? -- Markus Zusak
And the boy whose hair remained the color of lemons forever. -- Markus Zusak
He was the second snowman to be melting away before her eyes, only this one was different. It was a paradox. The colder he became, the more he melted. -- Markus Zusak
Liesel shrugged away entirely from the crowd and entered the tide of Jews, weaving through them till she grabbed hold of his arm with her left hand. His face fell on her. It reached down as she tripped, and the Jew,the nasty Jew, helped her up. It took all of his strength. -- Markus Zusak
Ducking around twisted trees whose fingers are branches spread like cracked ceilings under gray sky. -- Markus Zusak
Walter Kugler was on the ground, his blond hair peppered with dirt. -- Markus Zusak
There were stars. They burned my eyes. -- Markus Zusak
Max, Hans, and Rosa I cannot account for, but I know that Liesel Meminger was thinking that if the bombs ever landed on Himmel Street, not only did Max have less chance of survival than everyone else, but he would die completely alone. -- Markus Zusak
A happening was looming. It was out there somewhere beyond the regular enclosed life that I had been living. It was out there, not waiting, but existing. Being. Perhaps it was only slightly wondering if I would come to it. -- Markus Zusak
People have defining moments, i suppose, especially when they're children. -- Markus Zusak
It is early, early morning. It's that time when it's still dark but you know the day is coming. Blue is bleeding through black. Stars are dying. -- Markus Zusak
We expressed love for this dog by ... knowing without showing that we cared for him. -- Markus Zusak
***A KEY WORD***
Imagined -- Markus Zusak
Time will tell, I suppose, or at least, these pages will. -- Markus Zusak
I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I even 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 AM HAUNTED BY HUMANS. -- Markus Zusak
There was no more yelling or calling out, but they could not contain the small snatches of laughter. They were only humans, playing in the snow, in a house -- Markus Zusak
A woman of wire had laid herself down, her scream traveling the street, till it fell sideways like a rolling coin starved of momentum. -- Markus Zusak
*** A SMALL ANNOUNCEMENT ***
ABOUT RUDY STEINER
He didn't deserve to die the way he did. -- Markus Zusak
I am haunted by human -- Markus Zusak
In the darkness of my dark-beating heart, I know. He'd have loved it, all right. -- Markus Zusak
One day, Liesel.' he said, 'you'll be dying to kiss me. -- Markus Zusak
What I like best is walking with my hands in my pockets, having the Doorman next to me, and imagining that Audrey's on my other side.
I always picture us from behind. -- Markus Zusak
Behind me, a teddy bear was resting on the shoulder of a corpse. A lemon candle stood below the branches. The pilot's soul was in my arms. -- Markus Zusak
Can a person steal happiness? Or is just another internal, infernal human trick? -- Markus Zusak
caughtoutedness. Some examples: People jumping out of alleys. Schoolteachers suddenly being aware of every sin you've ever committed. Police showing up at the door each time a leaf turns or a distant gate slams shut. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
His eyes were cold and brown - like coffee stains ... -- Markus Zusak
It was one of those moments of perfect tiredness, of having conquered not only the work at hand, but the night who had blocked the way. -- Markus Zusak
They accumulated, hour by hour, like sweet and sour dreams, waiting to happen. -- Markus Zusak
One of the best things about her was that she actually acknowledged my existence. -- Markus Zusak
Papa!" she whispered. "I have no eyes!"
He patted the girl's hair. She'd fallen into his trap. "With a smile like that," Hans Hubermann said, "you don't need eyes. -- Markus Zusak
I called back, but not loud enough, probably. I don't like making noise in public -- Markus Zusak
Papa grinned and pointed at the girl. "Book, sandpaper, pencil," he ordered her, "and accordion!" once she was already gone. Soon, they were on Himmel Street, carrying the words, the music, the washing. -- Markus Zusak
Under the ground, in Munich, Germany, two people stood and spoke in a basement. It sounds like the beginning of a joke:
'There's a Jew and a German standing in a basement, right?...'
This, however, was no joke. -- Markus Zusak
The moon was sewn into the sky that night. Clouds were stitched around it. -- Markus Zusak
They ignore the reality that a new version of the same old problem will be waiting at the end of the trip - -- Markus Zusak
The impoverished always try to keep moving, as if relocating might help. They ignore the reality that a new version of the same old problem will be waiting at the end of the trip- the relative you cringe to kiss. -- Markus Zusak
Yes, the sky was now a devastating, home-cooked red. The small German town had been flung apart one more time. Snowflakes of ash fell so lovelily you were tempted to stretch out your tongue to catch them, taste them. Only, they would have scorched your lips. They would have cooked your mouth. -- Markus Zusak
The days and nights come apart. I feel them corroding at the seams. -- Markus Zusak
I want to talk to him. I want to ask him about that girl and if he loved her and still misses her. -- Markus Zusak
Walk into the living room (which doubled as the Hubermanns' bedroom), pull the accordion -- Markus Zusak
I think 'The Lord Of The Rings' is the mother of all cult books, because you can be in that cult and not even know you're in it. -- Markus Zusak
She was renowned as the best word shaker of her region because she knew how powerless a person could be WITHOUT words. That's why she could climb higher than anyone else. She had desire. She was hungry for them. -- Markus Zusak
You know,' she begins, 'you fellas ought to be looking after each other.' Her comment makes me realise that through the lies, the greatest irony is that we are looking out for each other. It's just that in the end, we're letting her down. That's what injures us. -- Markus Zusak
On the opposite side, the mannequins stood like witnesses. They were serious and ludicrously stylish. It was hard to shake the feeling that they were watching everything. -- Markus Zusak
Steve, on the other hand, has plenty of friends, but he wouldn't bleed for any of them, because he wouldn't trust them to bleed for him. In that way he's just as alone as me. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
It was Russia, January 5, 1943, and just another icy day. Out among the city and snow, there were dead Russians and Germans everywhere. Those who remained were firing into the blank pages in front of them. Three languages interwove. The Russian, the bullets, the German. -- Markus Zusak
We don't need a point, son. We're juvenile, we're dirty, we don't have girls, we have noses full of snot, throats sore as hell, we've got scabs on us, we suffer bouts of acne, we've got no girls ... What more reasons do we need? -- Markus Zusak
Tradition can be a dirty word, especially around Christmas. Families all over the globe get together and enjoy each other's company for all of a few minutes. For an hour, they endure each other. After that, they just manage to stomach each other. -- Markus Zusak
You bastards, she said. You lovely bastards. -- Markus Zusak
The music would look Liesel in the face. I know it sounds strange, but that's how it felt to her. -- Markus Zusak
A mosquito sings in my ear, and I almost feel grateful for the company. I'm even tempted to sing along. It -- Markus Zusak
He was skinny with soft hair, and his thick, murky eyes watched as the stranger played one more song in the heavy room. From face to face, he looked on as the man played and the woman wept. The different notes handled her eyes. Such sadness. -- Markus Zusak
When I glanced back at the plane, the pilot's open mouth appeared to be smiling. -- Markus Zusak
In mid-February, when she turned ten, Liesel was given a used doll that had a missing leg and yellow hair. "It was the best we could do," Papa apologized. "What are you talking about? She's lucky to have that much," Mama corrected him. -- Markus Zusak
Why me? I ask God. God says nothing. I laugh and the stars watch. It's good to be alive. -- Markus Zusak
She waited for the suffocation of sleep. -- Markus Zusak
I bet that guy was as obsessed with Sarah as I am with this other girl, and I bet he promised himself never to hurt her, just like I've been doin' - and look what he's done to her. He's left her a crumpled mess, lyin' on her bed all the time. -- Markus Zusak
She even touches Jimmy's face on the photos, and I see what it is to love someone like Milla loved that man. Her fingertips are made of love. -- Markus Zusak
The Germans in basements were pitiable, surely, but at least they had a chance. That basement was not a washroom. They were not sent there for a shower. For those people, life was still achievable. -- Markus Zusak
Maxi Taxi, you've got him now, you've got him, Jew boy, you've got him, you've got him!" A small kid with soft tufts of hair, a beaten nose, and swampy eyes, Max was a good head shorter -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
Trust me, though, the words were on their way, and when they arrived, Liesel would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she would wring them out, like the rain. (p. 85) -- Markus Zusak
I love and hate this place because it is full of words. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
I however, try to enjoy every color I see the whole spectrum. A billion or so flavors, none of them quite the same. -- Markus Zusak
I've come to the realization that I really only want to write books that maybe I can't write. -- Markus Zusak
There was also a rumor that later in the day, she walked fully clothed into the Amper River and said something very strange.
Something about a kiss.
Something about a Saumensch.
How many times did she have to say goodbye? -- Markus Zusak
Handfuls of frosty water can make almost anyone smile, but it cannot make them forget. -- Markus Zusak
It felt as though the while globe was dressed in snow. Like it had pulled it on, the way you pull on a jumper. -- Markus Zusak
We smell the impact of traffic and humans. Humans and traffic. Back and forth. We taste our moment, swallowing it, knowing it. We feel our nerves twitching inside our stomaches, lunging at our skin from beneath. -- Markus Zusak
I'm Angelina," she says. "Are you here to save us?" I can see a tiny spark of hope awaken in her eyes.
"You're right, Angelina - I'm here to save you."
"Can you? Really?"
"I'll try," I say and the girl smiles. -- Markus Zusak
None of them had it. They had no qualms about stealing, but they needed to be told. They liked to be told, and Viktor Chemmel liked to be the teller. It was a nice microcosm. -- Markus Zusak
I think only one thing.
Where 's Octavia?
As I get closer to the bottom, I notice that it's water that I'm falling into. It's salty-green and smooth, until ...
I'm driven through the surface and go deeper. I'm surrounded.
I'm drowning. I think. I'm drowning.
But I'm smiling too. -- Markus Zusak
There were not many people who could say that their education had been paid for with cigarettes. -- Markus Zusak
Her teeth were like a soccer crowd, crammed in. -- Markus Zusak
The world is an ugly stew, she thought.
It's so ugly I can't stand it. -- Markus Zusak
He was the crazy one who had painted himself black and defeated the world.
She was the book thief without the words.
Trust me, though, the words were on their way, and when they arrived, Liesel would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she would wring them out like rain. -- Markus Zusak
Sometimes she would whisper the word Mama and see her mother's face a hundred times in a single afternoon. -- Markus Zusak
I look at my first books and am glad they weren't published ... You start writing by imitating your heroes, then you keep the heart of that worship in your work. As time goes by, you get other influences and find your own voice. -- Markus Zusak
Have faith, Ed, all right?'
I search the coffee mug, but there's none in there. -- Markus Zusak
They fought like champions.
For a minute.
Just when it was getting interesting, both boys were hauled away their collars. A watchful parent. -- Markus Zusak
Earlier, I'd held her papa in one arm and her mama in the other. Each soul was so soft. -- Markus Zusak
They were eating in the kitchen. Looking at the spoonfuls of pea soup entering Mama's mouth, she decided to shift her focus to Papa. "There's something -- Markus Zusak
Her heart at that point was slippery and hot, and loud, so loud so loud. -- Markus Zusak
It's not a big thing, but I guess it's true
big things are often just small things that are noticed. -- Markus Zusak
Through the overcast sky, I looked up and saw the tin-can planes. I watched their stomachs open and drop the bombs casually out. They were off target, of course. They were often off target. -- Markus Zusak
I feel the fear, but I walk fast toward it. -- Markus Zusak
How many people get this chance?
And of those few, how many actually take it? -- Markus Zusak
It's not so much that the old friend is a better friend. It's just that you know the person better, and you know they don't really care if you're acting like a poor, grovelling idiot. They know you would do the same for them. -- Markus Zusak
First the colours.
Then the humans.
That's usually how I see things.
Or at least, how I try. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
A couple of them were school beauty-queen pretty while a few were that more real-looking type. A realer kind of pretty. -- Markus Zusak
Not a beauty queen. Not one of those. You know the ones. She was real. -- Markus Zusak
Soon evening worked its way into the sky, and the city hunched itself down. -- Markus Zusak
I wanted nothing for free.
Nothing came for free at our place anyway. -- Markus Zusak
If I'm ever going to be okay, I'll have to earn it. -- Markus Zusak
Best friends one, and now we have almost nothing to say to each other. It was interesting, how he had joined those guys and I just stayed on my own. I didn't like it or dislike it. It was just funny that things had turned out that way. -- Markus Zusak
You save someone.
You kill them. -- Markus Zusak
Never had movement been such a burden. Never had a heart been so definite and big in her adolescent chest. -- Markus Zusak
Ed?" Ritchie says later. We're still standing in the water. "There's only one thing I want."
"What's that, Ritchie?"
His answer is simple.
"To want. -- Markus Zusak
I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. -- Markus Zusak
When you lie once, you have to make it uniform. We all know that. -- Markus Zusak
All my friends seem to be smart arses. Don't ask me why. Like many things, it is what it is. -- Markus Zusak
She closes the door completely, and I crouch there. I allow myself to fall forward and rest my head on the door frame. My breath bleeds. My heartbeat drowns my ears. -- Markus Zusak
I'm ready now." If he'd intervened, it might have -- Markus Zusak
He's been to the brink and come back. I guess when you lose your pride, even for just a moment, you realise how much it means to you. -- Markus Zusak
Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are. -- Markus Zusak
There were heavy beams - planks of sun - falling randomly, wonderfully, onto the road. Clouds arched their backs to lok behind as they started again to move on. 'It's such a beautiful day,' he said, and his voice was in many pieces. A great day to die. A great day to die, like this. -- Markus Zusak
You're a dead man". I hear his voice again, and I see the words on my face when I get back in the cab and look in the rearview mirror.
It makes me think of my life, my nonexistent accomplishments and my overall abilities in incompetence.
"A dead man", I think. He's not far wrong. -- Markus Zusak
Goodbye, Papa, you saved me. You taught me to read. No one can play like you. I'll never drink champagne. No one can play like you.
-Liesel -- Markus Zusak
I even move out onto the front porch and see my own limited view of the world. I want to take that world, and for the first time ever, I feel like I can do it. I've survived everything I've had to so far. I'm still standing here. -- Markus Zusak
You can do anything when it's not real.
When it is real, nothing breaks your fall. Nothing gets between you and the ground. -- Markus Zusak
A small but noteworthy note. I've seen so many young men over the years who think they're running at other young men. They are not. They are running at me. -- Markus Zusak
I don't want to hope for anything anymore. I don't want to pray that Max is alive and safe. Or Alex Steiner.
Because the world did not deserve them. -- Markus Zusak
Together, they would watch everything that was so carefully planned collapse, and they would smile at the beauty of destruction. -- Markus Zusak
The consequence of this is that I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both. (Death) -- Markus Zusak
The word maybe was beginning to annoy me, because the only thing that was fixed was that maybe would be with me forever. -- Markus Zusak
I have loved words, I have hated them, and I hope I have used them well. -- Markus Zusak
I didn't know words could be so heavy. -- Markus Zusak
You see, to me, for just a moment, despite all of the colors that touch and grapple with what I see in this world, I will often catch an eclipse when a human dies.
I've seen millions of them.
I've seen more eclipses than I care to remember -- Markus Zusak
Clearly, I see it.
I was just about to leave when I found her kneeling there.
A mountain range of rubble was written, designed, erected around her. She was clucthing at a book. -- Markus Zusak
You're far from this. This story is just another few hundred pages of your mind. -- Markus Zusak
He would wink at the girl and, clumsily, she'd wink back. -- Markus Zusak
Words are so heavy. -- Markus Zusak
Please believe me when I tell you that I picked up each soul that day as if it were newly born. I even kissed a few weary, poisoned cheeks. I listened to their last, gasping cries. Their vanishing words. I watched their love visions and freed them from their fear. -- Markus Zusak
I took them all away, and if ever there was a time I needed distraction, this was it. In complete desolation, I looked at the world above. I watched the sky as it turned from silver to gray to the color of rain. Even the clouds were trying to get away. -- Markus Zusak
The night is alive with stars, and when I lie down and look up, I get lost up there. I feel like I'm falling, but upward, into the abyss of sky above me. -- Markus Zusak
A fact regarding Max Vandenburg
He would search the faces on Munich street for a book-thieving girl. -- Markus Zusak
THE LAST WORDS OF MAX VANDENBURG: You've done enough. -- Markus Zusak
In the basement of 33 Himmel Street, Max Vandenburg could feel the fists of an entire nation. One by one they climbed into the ring to beat him down. They made him bleed. They let him suffer. Millions of them
until one last time, when he gathered himself to his feet ... -- Markus Zusak
Thank you.
For Max Vandenburg, those were the two most pitiful words he could possibly say, rivaled only by I'm sorry. There was a constant urge to speak both expressions, spurred on by the affliction of guilt. -- Markus Zusak
He had what he called just a small ration of tools:
A painted book.
A handful of pencils.
A mindful of thoughts.
Like a simple puzzle, he put them together. -- Markus Zusak
She was a Jew feeder without a question in the world on that man's first night in Molching. She was an arm reacher, deep into a mattress, to deliver a sketchbook to a teenage girl. (84.25) -- Markus Zusak
The last thing I wanted was to look down at the stranded face of my teenager. A pretty girl. Her whole death was now ahead of her. -- Markus Zusak
It's lucky I was there. Then again, who am I kidding? I'm in most places at least once, and in 1943, I was just about everywhere. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
I am stupid" Hans Hubermann told his foster daughter " And kind, which makes me the biggest idiot in the world. -- Markus Zusak
I am stupid. And kind. Which makes the biggest idiot in the world. -- Markus Zusak
We're silent now, both waiting, till I remind myself that I'm the older one and should therefore initiate conversation. But I don't. I don't want to waste this girl with idle chitchat. She's beautiful. -- Markus Zusak
Max lifted his head, with great sorrow and great astonishment.
'There were stars,' He said. 'They burned my eyes.'
... from a Himmel street window, he wrote, the stars set fire to my eyes. -- Markus Zusak
breathing then, for -- Markus Zusak
It's funny, don't you think, how time seems to do a lot of things? It flies, it tells, and worst of all, it runs out. -- Markus Zusak
I'd been in love with her for years. I never left this suburban town. I didn't go to university. I went to Audrey. -- Markus Zusak
I guess if editing doesn't hurt, you're probably not doing it properly. I find it quite difficult. The hardest part is believing that it's actually working and getting rid of the doubt that always creeps in. -- Markus Zusak
I realize that nothing belongs to her any more and she belongs to everything. She -- Markus Zusak
It's all very well for such a person to whine and moan and criticize other family members, but they won't let anyone else do it. -- Markus Zusak
I kept walking. Have you ever done that? Just walk. Just walk and have no idea where you're going? It wasn't a good feeling, but not a bad one either. I felt caged and free at the same time, like it was only myself that wouldn't allow me to feel either great or miserable. -- Markus Zusak
You can kill a man with those words.
No gun.
No bullets.
Just words and a girl. -- Markus Zusak
She soon says, "You're my best friend, Ed."
"I know."
You can kill a man with those words. -- Markus Zusak
He stood a few meters from the step and spoke with great conviction, great joy.
"Alles ist Scheisse," he announced.
All is shit. -- Markus Zusak
The spoken truth of Rudy Steiner
'I guess I'm better at leaving things behind than stealing them. -- Markus Zusak
She didn't dare to look up, but she could feel their frightened eyes hanging onto her as she hauled the words in and breathed them out. A voice played the notes inside her. This, it said, is your accordion. -- Markus Zusak
Certainly war meant dying, but it always shifted the ground beneath a person's feet when it was someone who had once lived and breathed in close proximity. -- Markus Zusak
***HERE IS A SMALL FACT***
You are going to die. -- Markus Zusak
Jesse Owens?" Mr. Steiner was the type of man who was very wooden. His voice was angular and true. His body was tall and heavy, like oak. His hair was like splinters. "What about him? -- Markus Zusak
An attribute of Rosa Hubermann, she was a good woman for a crisis. -- Markus Zusak
Liesel was sure her mother carried the memory of him, slung over her shoulder. She dropped him. She saw his feet and legs and body slap the platform. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day. -- Markus Zusak
For now, the idea was enough. It was indestructible. Transforming it into reality, well, that was something else altogether. For now, though, let's let him enjoy it.
We'll give him seven months.
Then we come for him.
And oh, how we come. -- Markus Zusak
If you're optimistic, think of it as bronze. -- Markus Zusak
He was tall and abrupt and exactly the kind of guy you wanted to be walking the streets with. -- Markus Zusak
It feels like spoken words, this bridge. I want it but fear it. God, I want so desperately to reach the other side - just like I want the words. I want my words to build bridges strong enough to walk on. I want them to tower over the world so I can stand up on them and walk to the other side. -- Markus Zusak
People observe the colours of a day only at its beginnings and ends, but to me it's quite clear that day merges through a multitude of shades and intonations, with each passing moment. A single hour can consist of thousands of different colours. -- Markus Zusak
God, there were so many of them.
So many sets of dying eyes and scuffing feet. -- Markus Zusak
The pain of WATCHING them!
What about their pain? -- Markus Zusak
And the night is so deep and dark that I wonder if the sun will ever come up. -- Markus Zusak
Outside is dark.
The kitchen light is loud.
It deafens me as I walk towards it. -- Markus Zusak
That's when I have to ask him. "Can you really talk like that? Being holy and all?"
"What? Because I'm a priest?" He finishes the dregs of his coffee. "Sure. God knows what's important. -- Markus Zusak
That makes two weeks. Two weeks to change the world, and fourteen days to ruin it. -- Markus Zusak
Smile with instinct, then lick your wounds in the darkest of dark corners. Trace the scars back to your own fingers and remember them. -- Markus Zusak
If I ever leave this place- I'll make sure I'm better HERE first. -- Markus Zusak
The fire was nothing now but a funeral of smoke, dead and dying, simultaneously. -- Markus Zusak
I find writing extremely difficult. I usually have to drag myself to my desk, mainly because I doubt myself. And it's getting harder because I want to improve with every book. -- Markus Zusak
A Jew had once saved his life and he couldn't forget that. He couldn't join a party that antagonized people in such a way ... Like many of the Jews believed, he didn't think the hatred could last ... -- Markus Zusak
Every time you find something that doesn't work, you're a step closer to what does work. -- Markus Zusak
Keep going. You're a mess and you're happy. -- Markus Zusak
People observe the colors of a day only at its beginnings and ends, but to me it's quite clear that a day merges through a multitude of shades and intonations, with each passing moment. A single hour can consist of thousands of different colors. Waxy yellows, cloud-spat blues. Murky darknesses. -- Markus Zusak
The point is, Ilsa Hermann had decided to make suffering her triumph. When it refused to let go of her, she succumbed to it. She embraced it. -- Markus Zusak
It was a year for the ages, like 79, like 1346, to name just a few. Forget the scythe, Goddamn it, I needed a broom or a mop. And I needed a vacation. -- Markus Zusak
All the same, she cries on the front porch, and I wish I could go over there and hold her. I wish I could rescue her and hold her in my arms. How do people live like this? How do they survive? And maybe that's why I'm here. What if they can't anymore? -- Markus Zusak
She let herself love me for three minutes.
Can three minutes last forever? I ask myself, but already know the answer.
Probably not, I reply. But maybe they last long enough. -- Markus Zusak
It was pointless. The crowd was itself. There was no swaying it, squeezing through, or reasoning with it. You breathed with it and you sang its songs. You waited for its fire. -- Markus Zusak
The words were on their way, and when they arrived, she would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she would wring them out like the rain. -- Markus Zusak
I guess when someone tells you something they they usually guard, you feel privileged, not because you know something no-one else knows, but because you feel chosen. You feel like that person wants her life to intersect with yours. I think that's what felt best about it. -- Markus Zusak
Disbelief held me down inside my footsteps, making my body heavy but my heart wild. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
Sometimes I arrive too early. I rush, and some people cling longer to life than expected. -- Markus Zusak
At the end of the day, it's still up to you, and that's the beauty of books. In so many ways, they never really end. -- Markus Zusak
I did it because you are the epitome of ordinariness. -- Markus Zusak
She was a girl with a mountain to climb. -- Markus Zusak
I see Death as the part of us that knows all the time that we're going to die, reminding us to live properly. -- Markus Zusak
And they would all smile at the beauty of destruction. -- Markus Zusak
No, I'm not a saint, Sophie. I'm just another stupid human. We smile a last smile, and I walk away. I feel her watching me, but I don't look back. -- Markus Zusak
Why can't the world hear? I ask myself. Within a few moments I ask it many times. Because it doesn't care, I finally answer, and I know I'm right. It's like I've been chosen. But chosen for what? I ask. -- Markus Zusak
**** A 2 A.M. CONVERSATION****
"Is this yours?"
"Yes, Papa."
"Do you want to read it?"
Again, "Yes,Papa."
A tired smile.
Metallic eyes, melting.
"Well, we'd better read it, then. -- Markus Zusak
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? -- Markus Zusak
Some of you are most likely thinking that white is not really a colour and all of that tired sort of nonsense. Well, I'm here to tell you that it is. White is without question a colour, and personally, I don't think you want to argue with me. -- Markus Zusak
I'm sorry. I shouldn't be asking such things ... ' She let the sentence die its own death -- Markus Zusak
What do you want to kiss me for? I'm filthy.'- Liesel
So am I.'- Rudy -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
Two Giant Words: I'm Sorry -- Markus Zusak
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph." Papa's hands tightened on the splintery wood. "I'm an idiot."
No, Papa.
You're just a man. -- Markus Zusak
If a guy like you can stand up and do what you did then maybe everyone can. Maybe everyone can live beyond what they're capable of.
And that's when I realize: I'm not the messenger at all. I'm the message. -- Markus Zusak
He was into the skating culture now and I was into, well, I'm not sure what I was into. I was into roaming around on my own, and I enjoyed it. -- Markus Zusak
I say, 'Don't lose your heart, Rube.'
And very clearly, without moving, my brother answers me.
He says, 'I'm not tryin' to lose it, Cam. I'm tryin' to find it. -- Markus Zusak
I'm afraid, of falling asleep again. -- Markus Zusak
I'm just another stupid human. -- Markus Zusak
I'm twenty years old and look at me
there isn't a thing I want to do -- Markus Zusak
My voice is like a rumour. I'm not sure if it came out or not, or if it is true. -- Markus Zusak
I'm not one of these 'the characters write themselves; the story just fell out of me' kind of writers. Wish it was like that. -- Markus Zusak
Just because I can't read, doesn't mean I'm stupid - Liesel -- Markus Zusak
I like to tell students, 'I didn't burst on to the literary scene.' I'm never good at things at the beginning. I was terrible at the start. I need to work and work. -- Markus Zusak
I'm compelled to continue on, because although it's not true for every person on Earth, it's true for the vast majority that death waits for no man and if he does, he doesn't usually wait very long. -- Markus Zusak
It's the person, Ma, not the place. If you left here, you'd have been the same anywhere else.'( ... )'If I ever leave this place' - I swallow - 'I'll make sure I'm better here first. -- Markus Zusak
I'm pretty much just hoping to live decent. I hope that's enough. -- Markus Zusak
Quite frankly, so am I, because what I'm about to tell you is a fact.
In this country, there is only one thing that can draw a crown without any shadow of a doubt. The answer?
Beer.
Free beer. -- Markus Zusak
Somehow, though, and I'm sure you've met people like this, he was able to appear as merely part of the background, even if he was standing at the front of a line. He was always just there. Not noticeable. Not important or particularly valuable. -- Markus Zusak
I'm not a writer who refuses to talk about a book until I've finished. -- Markus Zusak
I could smell something. Fear.
I could taste it now.
It tasted like blood in my mouth, and I could feel it slide through me and open me up when I saw him ... -- Markus Zusak
She slept a lot and didn't dream, and on most occasions she was sorry to wake up. Everything disappeared when she was asleep. -- Markus Zusak
The dilemma, of course, is that such people save their most important words for after, when the surrounding humans are unlucky enough to find them. -- Markus Zusak
They were glued down, every last one of them. A packet of souls.
Was it fate?
Misfortune?
Is that what glued them down like that?
Of course not.
Let's not be stupid.
It probably had more to do with the hurled bombs, thrown down by humans hiding in the clouds. -- Markus Zusak
You see? Even death has a heart. -- Markus Zusak
Liesel observed the strangeness of her foster father's eyes. They were made of kindness, and silver. -- Markus Zusak
The injury of words.
Yes, the brutality of words. -- Markus Zusak
Moments, Liesel stood. The corridor was huge. She examined the soldier in her palm. Instinct told her to run home immediately, but common sense did not allow it. Instead, she placed the ragged soldier in her pocket and returned to the classroom. -- Markus Zusak
It didn't really matter what that book was about. It was what it meant that was more important. -- Markus Zusak
The paper landed on the table, but the news was stapled to his chest. A tattoo. -- Markus Zusak
The moon was undone now, free to move and rise and fall and drip on the boy's face, making him nice and murky, like his thoughts. -- Markus Zusak
Sometimes I imagined how everything looked above those clouds, knowing without question that the sun was blond, and the endless atmosphere was a giant blue eye -- Markus Zusak
I watched the sky as it turned from silver to grey to the colour of rain. Even the clouds tried to look the other way. -- Markus Zusak
There are moments when you can only stand and stare, watching the world forget you as you remove yourself from it - when you overcome it and cease to exist as the person you were. -- Markus Zusak
The thing is, I don't even hate cops. To tell you the truth, I actually feel a little sorry for them. -- Markus Zusak
Could she smell my breath? Could she hear my cursed circular heart beat revolving like the crime it is in my deathly chest? -- Markus Zusak
A REASSURING ANNOUNCEMENT Please, be calm, despite that previous threat. I am all bluster - I am not violent. I am not malicious. I am a result. -- Markus Zusak
There are so many moments to remember and sometimes I think that maybe we're not really people at all. Maybe moments are what we are ... Sometimes I just survive. But sometimes I stand on the rooftop of my existence, arms stretched out, begging for more. -- Markus Zusak
I know who you are and I am ready. Not that I want to go, of course, but I will come. Those souls are always light because more of them have been put out. -- Markus Zusak
It brewed in her as she eyed the pages full to the brims of their bellies with paragraphs and words.
You bastards, she thought.
You lovely bastards.
Don't make me happy. Please, don't fill me up and let me think that something good can come of any of this. -- Markus Zusak
The table. That Saukerl, that filthy pig - you call him Papa, verstehst? Understand? -- Markus Zusak
At first, he only continues walking. Only when I look down on our feet do I realize that we're actually going nowhere. It's the world that moves - the streets, the air, and the dark patches of inner sky. -- Markus Zusak
Would I always feel so small that it hurt and that even the greatest outcry roaring from my throat was, in reality, just a whimper? Would my footsteps always stop so suddenly and sink into the footpath? -- Markus Zusak
Don't get caught.' This from a man who'd stolen a Jew. -- Markus Zusak
How about a kiss, Saumensch? -- Markus Zusak
To me the question is always this: if a ray of light came out of the sky and said, "Your next book will never be published - would you still write it?" If the answer is yes, the book is worth writing. -- Markus Zusak
When she faced the noise, she found the mayor's wife in a brand-new bathrobe and slippers. On the breast pocket of the robe sat an embroidered swastika. Propaganda even reached the bathroom. -- Markus Zusak
The sun stirs the earth. Around and around, it stirs us like stew. -- Markus Zusak
She was holding desperately on to the words that had saved her life. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
Snowflakes of ash fell so lovelily you were tempted to stretch out your tongue to catch them, taste them. Only, they would have scorched your lips. They would have cooked your mouth. Clearly, -- Markus Zusak
Her fingertips are made of love. When she speaks, her voice is made of love. -- Markus Zusak
You ate it up and you didn't ask for more, and you didn't complain. -- Markus Zusak
And please," Ilsa Hermann advised her, "don't punish yourself, like you said you would. Don't be like me, Liesel. -- Markus Zusak
She saw it all so clearly. Her starving mother, her missing father. Kommunisten. Her dead brother. -- Markus Zusak
There's ache in her arms and ache in her legs and heart. But on her face is the beauty of the morning. -- Markus Zusak
I think to be writer you have to enjoy being alone. I was a loner as a teenager and was always drawn to characters in books and films who were at the fringes. -- Markus Zusak
It makes me think of my life, my nonexistent accomplishments and my overall abilities in incompetence. -- Markus Zusak
She was a girl. In Nazi Germany. How fitting that she was discovering the power of words -- Markus Zusak
You don't always get what you wish for. Especially in Nazi Germany -- Markus Zusak
She's beautiful. In the way she is. -- Markus Zusak
I never did get around to praying for myself, did I? Maybe that's what was behind it, though. Myself. Maybe the only reason I'd prayed for others to begin with was to bring myself good fortune. Was that true? Was it? -- Markus Zusak
The last time I saw her was red. The sky was like soup, boiling and stirring. In some places, it was burned. There were black crumbs, and pepper, streaked across the redness. -- Markus Zusak
I was always reading books when I should have been doing math and the rest of it. -- Markus Zusak
It was a style not of perfection, but warmth. Even mistakes had a good feeling about them -- Markus Zusak
He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist's suit collection. -- Markus Zusak
I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right. - Liesel Meminger -- Markus Zusak
It could be worse. I could be you. -- Markus Zusak
He's most likely robbing the bank as a paycheck on the world for winning the ugliness prize at his local fete three years running. -- Markus Zusak
***A SMALL SUGGESTION***
Or maybe there was a woman on Grande Strasse who now kept her library window open for another reason - but that's just be being cynical, or hopeful. Or both. -- Markus Zusak
I wanted to drown inside a woman in the feeling and drooling of the love I could give her. I wanted her pulse to crush me with its intensity. That's what I wanted. That's what I wanted myself to be. -- Markus Zusak
The silence was always the greates temptation. -- Markus Zusak
It's funny how there are things in this world that do nothing but annoy you, but you know you'd miss them when they're gone. -- Markus Zusak
He steps on my heart. He makes me cry. -- Markus Zusak
So many people chased after me in that time, calling my name, asking me to take them with me. Then there was the small percentage who called me casually over and whispered with their tightend voices. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
Keep playing, Papa.
Papa stopped. -- Markus Zusak
Sitting in the water, she imagined the smell of it, mapped out on her papa's clothes. More than anything, it was the smell of friendship, and she could find it on herself, too. Liesel loved that smell. She would sniff her arm and smile as the water cooled around her. -- Markus Zusak
Papa would say a word and the girl would have to spell it aloud and then paint it on the wall, as long as she got it right. After a month, the wall was recoated. A fresh cement page. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
Papa- the accordionist- and Himmel Street.
One could not exist without the other, because for Liesel, both were home. -- Markus Zusak
a letter to her for? You have to put up with her every day." Papa was schmunzel -- Markus Zusak
Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes. -- Markus Zusak
Grimly, she realized that clocks don't make a sound that even remotely resembles ticking, tocking. It was more the sound of a hammer, upside down, hacking methodically at the earth. It was the sound of a grave. -- Markus Zusak
Duden Dictionary Meaning #4. Wort - Word: A meaningful unit of language / a promise / a short remark, statement, or conversation. Related words: term, name, expession. -- Markus Zusak
Personally, I like a chocolate-covered sky. Dark, dark chocolate. People say it suits me. I do, however, try to enjoy every color I see - the whole spectrum. A billion or so flavors, none of them quite the same, and a sky to slowly suck on. It takes the edge off the stress. It helps me relax. -- Markus Zusak
A book floated down the Amper River.
A boy jumped in, caught up to it, and held
it in his right hand. He grinned. He stood
waist-deep in the icy, Decemberish water.
"How about a kiss, Saumensch?" he said. -- Markus Zusak
Stealing it, in a sick kind of sense, was like earning it. -- Markus Zusak
But neither of us knows, because a fight's worth nothing if you know from the start that you're going to win it. -- Markus Zusak
For a moment, I debated whether I should tell someone about the words I'd started writing down, but I couldn't. In a way, I felt ashamed, even though my writing was the one thing that whispered okayness in my ear. I didn't speak it, to anyone. -- Markus Zusak
You can do all manner of underhanded nice things when you have a caustic reputation. -- Markus Zusak
Crowds of questions stream through me like lines of people exiting a soccer ground or a concert. They push and shove and trip. Some make their way around. Some remain in their seats, waiting for their opportunity. -- Markus Zusak
Liesel crossed the bridge over the Amper River. The water was glorious and emerald and rich. She could see the stones at the bottom and hear the familiar song of water. The world did not deserve such a river. -- Markus Zusak
Do you have to pay to be Jewish? Do you need a licence? -- Markus Zusak
I am haunted by humans. -- Markus Zusak
I walked in, loosened his soul, and carried it gently away. -- Markus Zusak
The Hubbermanns had two of their own (children), but they were older and had moved out ... Soon they would be both in the war. One would be making bullets. The other would be shooting them. -- Markus Zusak
She took a step and didn't want to take any more, but she did. -- Markus Zusak
It's much easier, she realized, to be on the verge of something than to actually be it. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
How do you tell if someone is alive? You check for breathing. -- Markus Zusak
Well, have you even tried again? You can't just sit around waiting for the new world to take it with you. You have to go out and be part of it - despite your past mistakes. -- Markus Zusak
1. The desperate Jews - their spirits in my lap as we sat on the roof, next to the steaming chimneys.
2. The Russian soldiers - taking only small amounts of ammunition, relying on the fallen for the rest of it.
3. The soaked bodies of a French coast - beached on the shingle and sand. -- Markus Zusak
His hair is like feathers. -- Markus Zusak
A young man was hung by a rope made of Stalingrad snow -- Markus Zusak
Now I've changed things. I've left my own fingerprints on the world, no matter how small, and it's upset the equilibrium of us -- Markus Zusak
She rubbed her eyes, and after a long study of his face, she spoke
"Is it really you?"
Is it from your cheek, she thought, that I took the seed?
The man nodded.
His heart wobbled and he held tighter to the branches.
It is. -- Markus Zusak
But as they walked on, they stopped several times, to listen. They thought they could hear voices and words behind them, on the word shaker's tree. -- Markus Zusak
There was once a strange small man but there was a word shaker too. -- Markus Zusak
The threat of Jewish competition was taken away, but so were the Jewish customers -- Markus Zusak
She'll never understand the shyness of Sophie's words or the silence of her beauty. -- Markus Zusak
No one else could carry close to forty-five thousand people in such a short amount of time. Not in a million human years. -- Markus Zusak
... Pfiffikus, whose vulgarity made Rosa Hubermann look like a wordsmith and a saint. -- Markus Zusak
The orange flames waved at the crowd as paper and print dissolved inside them. Burning words were torn from their sentences. -- Markus Zusak
Steam was rising weirdly from his clothes. His hangover was visible. It heaved itself to his shoulders and sat there like a bag of wet cement. -- Markus Zusak
As a child in Sydney, my German Mum and my Austrian Dad would spontaneously tell me stories about what they saw and what they did as children. It was like a piece of Europe coming into our house ... Those stories led me to my writing. -- Markus Zusak
One sat painfully now, among the falling chunks of rain, and the other stood next to her, waiting. -- Markus Zusak
The water crumbles on it's way down as my hands and feet push me forward. The world is lightening, taking shape, and turning to color. It feels like it's being painted around me. -- Markus Zusak
White light lowered itself into a boxing ring and a crowd stood and murmured
that magical sound of many people talking all at once. How could every person there have so much to say at the same time? -- Markus Zusak
People die of broken hearts. They have heart attacks. And it's the heart that hurts most when things go wrong and fall apart. -- Markus Zusak
Shadows of cloud lurked in the water, like holes the sun forgot about. -- Markus Zusak
The sky is blue today, Max, and there is a big long cloud, and it's stretched out, like a rope. At the end of it, the sun is
like a yellow hole ... -- Markus Zusak
There were people everywhere on the city street, but the stranger could not have been more alone if it were empty. -- Markus Zusak
Just be patient, she told herself, and with the mounting pages, the strength of her writing fist grew. -- Markus Zusak
When finally she finished and stood herself up, he put his arm around her, best-buddy style, and they walked on. There was no request for a kiss. Nothing like that. You can love Rudy for that, if you like. -- Markus Zusak
When I found it amongst the book thief's words, I realised that we passed each other once in a while during that period, though neither of us scheduled a meeting. Personally, I had a lot of work to do. As for Hans, I think he was doing his best to avoid me. -- Markus Zusak
Words are heavy...The words were stapled to her. -- Markus Zusak
I only know that all of those people would have sensed me that night, excluding the youngest of the children. I was the suggestion. I was the advice, my imagined feet walking into the kitchen and down the corridor. -- Markus Zusak
My heart applauds inside my ears, first like a roaring crowd, then slows and slows until it's a solitary person, clapping with unbridled sarcasm.
Clap. Clap.
Clap.
Well done, Ed.
Well given up. -- Markus Zusak
The song was born on her breathe and died at her lips. -- Markus Zusak
Mystery bores me. It chores me. I know what happens and so do you. It's the machinations that wheel us there that aggravate, perplex, interest, and astound me. -- Markus Zusak
The road was icy as it was, but Rudy put on the extra coat, barely able to contain a grin. It ran across his face like a skid. -- Markus Zusak
Amen,' I say, delayed, and now, like many of these people, I pray for the first time in years. -- Markus Zusak
They were frightened, no question, but they were not afraid of me. It was a fear of messing up and having to face themselves again, and facing the world, and the likes of you. -- Markus Zusak
You might argue that I make the rounds no matter what year it is, but sometimes the human race likes to crank things up a little. They increase the production of bodies and their escaping souls. -- Markus Zusak
Duden Dictionary Meaning #2
Verzeihung - Forgiveness: to stop feeling anger, animosity, or resentment. -- Markus Zusak
Now more than ever, 33 Himmel Street was a place of silence, and it did not go unnoticed that the Duden Dictionary was completely and utterly mistaken, especially with its related words.
Silence was not quiet or calm, and it was not peace. -- Markus Zusak
A beautiful, tear-stomped girl,shaking the dead. -- Markus Zusak
I had many boxing matches with my brother in the backyard when we were younger, and I guess while other people abhor boxing for its brutality, I also have to admire anyone who climbs into the ring to face up to what could be the ultimate defeat. -- Markus Zusak
There was no one to really argue with, but Mama managed it expertly every chance she had. She could argue with the entire world in that kitchen and almost every evening, she did. -- Markus Zusak
The suffering faces of depleted men and women reached across to them, pleading not so much for help-they were beyond that-but for an explanation. Just something to subdue this confusion. -- Markus Zusak
Nothing comes naturally to me ... I have to work and rework and that's where
the ideas come from - from years of working on it and thinking about it. -- Markus Zusak
There are pieces of me on the ground. -- Markus Zusak
It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on, coughing and searching, and finding. -- Markus Zusak
The day was gray, the color of Europe. -- Markus Zusak
you need life in your life. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
When a person's last response was Saumensch or Saukerl or Arschloch, you knew you had them beaten. -- Markus Zusak
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 surprise. -- Markus Zusak
I told her about school and how I sat on a wall there and felt stories and words move through me ... -- Markus Zusak
No one had ever given her music before. -- Markus Zusak
I only know it would have been nice to be making love instead of attempting murder. -- Markus Zusak
I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words so damning and brilliant. -- Markus Zusak
One opportunity leads directly to another, just as risk leads to more risk, life to more life, and death to more death. -- Markus Zusak
God damn, you were so beautiful, Mama. -- Markus Zusak
Life had altered in the wildest possible way, but it was imperative that they act as if nothing at all had happened. -- Markus Zusak
A single word leaned against the girl. -- Markus Zusak
There must be aplace in heaven for those who have been where I have been. -- Markus Zusak
In a way, it was destiny. -- Markus Zusak
Oh, come on, Arthur." "I don't want to hear it, Andy." "Jesus Christ" "He doesn't want to hear it, either. -- Markus Zusak
Having conquered not only the work at hand, but the -- Markus Zusak
Well, promise me one thing, Liesel. If I die anytime soon, you make sure they bury me right. -- Markus Zusak
The journey continued like everything had happened. -- Markus Zusak
We all have our duties here. We all suffer. We all endure our setbacks for the greater good of mankind. -- Markus Zusak
You can't eat books, sweetheart. -- Markus Zusak
One wild card was yet to be played. -- Markus Zusak
Footsteps crease the grass behind us. -- Markus Zusak
... it was raining on Himmel Street when the world ended for Liesel Meminger.
The sky was dripping.
Like a tap that a child has tried its hardest to turn off but hasn't quite managed. -- Markus Zusak
Fact, you could say that Rosa Hubermann had a face decorated with constant fury. That was how the creases were made in the cardboard texture of her complexion. -- Markus Zusak
I felt something and vowed that if I ever got a girl I would treat her right and never be bad or dirty to her or hurt her, ever. I vowed it and had all the confidence in the world that I would keep the vow. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
I don't really know that this story has a whole lot of things happen in it. It doesn't really. It's just a record of how things were in my life during this last winter. I guess things happened, but nothing out of the ordinary. -- Markus Zusak
Around us I can sniff out a savagery in the noisy southern air. It knifes it's way into my nose, but I do not bleed blood. It's fear I bleed, and it gushes out over my lip. I wipe it away, in a hurry. -- Markus Zusak
He seemed to resonate with a kind of confidence that life was still nothing but a joke - an endless succession of soccer goals, trickery, and a constant repertoire of meaningless chatter. -- Markus Zusak
The sky was white but deteriorating fast. As always, it was becoming an enormous drop sheet. Blood was bleeding through, and in patches, the clouds were dirty, like footprints in melting snow.
Footprints? you ask.
Well, I wonder whose those could be. -- Markus Zusak
She wanted none of those days to end, and it was always with disappointment that she watched the darkness stride forward. -- Markus Zusak
That paper
it sits there, open at the employment section. It sits there like a war, and each small advertisement is another trench for a person to dive into. To hope and fight in. -- Markus Zusak
I always marvel at the humans' ability to keep going. They always manage to stagger on even with tears streaming down their faces. -- Markus Zusak
No one's urine smells as good as your own. -- Markus Zusak
When a woman with an iron fist tells you to get out there and clean spit off the door, you do it. Especially when the iron's hot. -- Markus Zusak
Who was there to soothe him as life's rug was snatched from under his sleeping feet? -- Markus Zusak
The notes were born on her breath, and they died at her lips. -- Markus Zusak
Only in today's sick society can a man be persecuted for reading too many books. -- Markus Zusak
I see myself beneath her.
Being taken and made love to.
I feel her.
I know her.
Taste her champagne mouth.
Ignore the ugly teeth.
Just shut my eyes and taste her. -- Markus Zusak
Do you still play the accordian? -- Markus Zusak
If you can't imagine it, think clumsy silence. Think bits and pieces of floating despair. And drowning in a train. -- Markus Zusak
Tried praying for him ... but I couldn't. I just couldn't. Don't ask me why. I hoped that he was okay, but I couldn't summon the strength to pray for it. -- Markus Zusak
Once, words had rendered Liesel useless, but now, when she sat on the floor, with the mayor's wife at her husband's desk, she felt an innate sense of power. It happened every time she deciphered a new word or pieced together a sentence. -- Markus Zusak
I watch the beauty for as long as I can, then turn and face the rest of it. -- Markus Zusak
A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship. -- Markus Zusak
When death captures me," the boy vowed, "he will feel my fist in his face." (31.26) -- Markus Zusak
It was a tradition for Frau Holtzapfel, one of their neighbors, to spit on the Hubermanns' door every time she walked past. The front door was only meters from the gate, and let's just say that Frau Holtzapfel had the distance - and the accuracy. -- Markus Zusak
The soft-spoken words fell off the side of the bed, emptying to the floor like powder. -- Markus Zusak
He killed himself for wanting to live. -- Markus Zusak
When they came together, Michael apologized. -- Markus Zusak
The world is lightening, taking shape, and turning to color. -- Markus Zusak
I saw the book thief three times. -- Markus Zusak
As usual, I collected humans. I was tired. And the year wasn't even halfway over yet. -- Markus Zusak
According to her, all her kids have done quite well except me, -- Markus Zusak
My own eyes try to sleep, but they don't. They stay wide awake as time snarls forward and silence drops down, like measured thought. -- Markus Zusak
Tears were frozen to the book theif's face. -- Markus Zusak
I have to say that although it broke my heart, I was, and still am, glad I was there. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
Want me, I beg, but nothing comes. -- Markus Zusak
We used to languish when we walked, or sidle down the street like dogs that have just done something wrong. Now Rube walks upright, because he's on the attack. -- Markus Zusak
Eleven-year-old paranoia was powerful. Eleven-year-old relief was euphoric. -- Markus Zusak
Saumensch, du dreckiges - it's about time! -- Markus Zusak
Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness. -- Markus Zusak
Quietly, he walked towards it with the matchbox in one hand, the candle in the other. -- Markus Zusak
In the trees this afternoon, he was a giver of bread and teddy bears. -- Markus Zusak
You're a human, you should understand self-obsession. -- Markus Zusak
There was sex, of course. Nakedness. Wall to wall, in and out of my thoughts. But when it was over it was her whispering voice I craved, and a human curled up in my arms. -- Markus Zusak
So much good, so much evil. Just add water. -- Markus Zusak
caughtoutedness. -- Markus Zusak
There were thousands of households throughout that city and there was something happening in all of them. There was some kind of story in each, but self-contained. No one else knew. No one else cared. -- Markus Zusak
An expression of surprise falls from her face, though she's trying to keep it. it breaks off and she seems to catch it and fidget with it in her hands. -- Markus Zusak
You don't shoot a dog when it is already dead. -- Markus Zusak
As I make my way through, I feel okayness reaching through me.
The funny thing is that okayness is not a real word. It's not in the dictionary.
But it's in me. -- Markus Zusak
The conversation of bullets. -- Markus Zusak
Awkward.
That's exactly how it was when we walked over to our sister and stood on each side of her, looking at her and feeling things and not knowing what to do. -- Markus Zusak
There was also an acknowledgment that there was great beauty in what she was currently witnessing, and she chose not to disturb it. -- Markus Zusak
He prefers not to ruin things with any more questions. What it is is what it is. -- Markus Zusak
A statue of the book thief stood in the courtyard ... it's very rare, don't you think, for a statue to appear before it's subject has become famous? -- Markus Zusak
How do you give someone a piece of sky? -- Markus Zusak
A halo surrounded the grim reaper nun, Sister Maria. (By the way-I like this human idea of the grim reaper. I like the scythe. It amuses me.) -- Markus Zusak
Do we spend most of our days trying to remember or to forget? Do we spend most of our time running towards or away from our lives? -- Markus Zusak
...I vacation in increments. In colors. -- Markus Zusak
A small, sad hope
No one wanted to bomb Himmel Street. No one would bomb a place named after heaven, would they? Would they? -- Markus Zusak
With the curtains clamped tight, he would sleep on the floor with a cushion beneath his head, as the fire slipped away and turned to ash.
In the morning he would return to the basement.
A voiceless human.
The Jewish rat, back to his hole. -- Markus Zusak
The bittersweetness of uncertainty: To win or to lose. -- Markus Zusak
She was like a lone angel floating above the surface of the earth, laughing with delight because she could fly but crying out of loneliness. -- Markus Zusak
Another ten minutes, the gates of thievery would open just a crack, and Lisa Meminger would widen them a little further and squeeze through. -- Markus Zusak
Even death has a heart. -- Markus Zusak
I s'pose, I can't have it all my own way, can I? You can't drown in a person unless they let you. -- Markus Zusak
Say something enough times and you never forget it. -- Markus Zusak
Failure has been my best friend as a writer. It tests you, to see if you have what it takes to see it through. -- Markus Zusak
What good are the words? -- Markus Zusak
It was November 3 and the floor of the train held onto his feet -- Markus Zusak
She could only hope they could read the depth of sorrow in her face, to recognize that it was true, and not fleeting. -- Markus Zusak
Chapter One: It was quite fitting that the entire town was sleeping when the dream carrier was born ... -- Markus Zusak
It feels like the mornings clap their hands.
To make me wake. -- Markus Zusak
Words are so heavy, she thought, but as the night wore on, she was able to complete eleven pages -- Markus Zusak
Of course you're real-like any thought or any story. It's real when you're in it. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
Sergeant Stephan Schneider -- Markus Zusak
Two weeks to change the world, fourteen days to destroy it. -- Markus Zusak
Liesel was tempted to ask her the meaning, but it never eventuated. -- Markus Zusak
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. -- Markus Zusak
It said: Dearest Milla, My sould needs yours. Love, Jimmy -- Markus Zusak
Well, this is basically the end, so the answers should be in these next few pages. I doubt they will surprise you, but you never know. I don't know how smart or thick you are. You could be Albert Einstein for all I know, or some literary prizewinner, or maybe you're just middle of the road like me. -- Markus Zusak
Are you looking at a dead man now? -- Markus Zusak
It would then be brought abruptly to an end, for the brightness had shown suffering the way. -- Markus Zusak
It kind of depressed me to think a human could be so lonely that she would comfort herself with the company of appliances that whistle, and sit alone to eat. -- Markus Zusak
I could go on, but I've decided for now that three examples will suffice. Three examples if nothing else, will give you the ashen taste in your mouth that defined my existence during that year. -- Markus Zusak
A choir of heavy-set Helgas pointed him out, and Thomas Mamer came storming towards the dirty fruit. -- Markus Zusak
Stealing is what the army does. Taking your father, and mine. -- Markus Zusak
Even enemies were an inch away from friendship. -- Markus Zusak
Very suddenly. Yes, quite suddenly, I didn't feel like I could handle my feeling of aloneness. -- Markus Zusak
How'd it feel?" Rube asked himself. "I don't know exactly, but it made me want to howl. -- Markus Zusak
To me, war is like the new boss who expects the impossible. He stands over your shoulder repeating one thing, incessantly: "Get it done, get it done." So you work harder. You get the job done. The boss, however, does not thank you. He asks for more. Often, -- Markus Zusak
Jesus, Mary and Joseph -- Markus Zusak
If there are alleys inside me, there must also be hallways. I -- Markus Zusak
Everything was so desperately noisy in the dark when he was alone. Each time he moved, there was the sound of a crease. He felt like a man in a paper suit. -- Markus Zusak
Summer came. For the books thief, everything was going nicely. For me, the sky was the color of Jews. -- Markus Zusak
Trust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the brute strength of the man's gentleness, his thereness. (p.36) -- Markus Zusak
How could she ever know that someone would pick her story up and carry it with him everywhere? -- Markus Zusak
I tried not to sleep because I was afraid of who might be there when I woke up. -- Markus Zusak
Very quickly, very suddenly, words fell through my mind. They landed on the floor of my thoughts, and in there, down there, I started to pick the words up. They were excerpts of truth gathered from inside me. -- Markus Zusak
You hungry?' Rudy asked.
Liesel replied, 'Starving.' For a book. -- Markus Zusak
Before they proceeded to their respective homes, Rudy's voice reached over and handed Liesel the truth. For a while, it sat on her shoulder, but a few thoughts later, it made its way to her ear. -- Markus Zusak
Yet each day, he managed to unravel and straighten himself, disgusted and thankful. Wrecked, but somehow not torn into pieces. -- Markus Zusak
Like regret in the shadow of trees and in the glow of an anarchist's suit collection -- Markus Zusak
Because a fight's worth nothing if you know from the start that you're going to win it. It's the ones in between that test you. They're the ones that bring questions with them. -- Markus Zusak
Even Rudy stood completely erect, feigning nonchalance, tensing himself against the tension. -- Markus Zusak
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. Tou think you're the only one he never answers? -- Markus Zusak
His eyes did not do anything that shock normally describes. No snapping, no slapping, no jolt. Those things happen when you wake from a bad dream, not when you wake into one. -- Markus Zusak
When her hands reached out and poured the tea, it was as if she also poured something into me while I sat there sweating in my cab. It was like she held a string and pulled on it just slightly to open me up. She got in, put a piece of herself inside me, and left again. -- Markus Zusak
Then the music begins and we can both hear the slow, quiet, sweet desperation of a song I won't mention. Imagine the softest, toughest, most beautiful song you know, and you've got it. -- Markus Zusak
It's not the place, I think. It's the people. We'd have all been the same anywhere else. -- Markus Zusak
Usually it was like spillage- cold and heavy, slippery and gray- but once in a while some stars had the nerve to rise and float, if only for a few minutes. -- Markus Zusak
There are skies manufactured by people, punctured and leaking,and there are soft,coal-colored clouds, beating like black hearts -- Markus Zusak
The only sound I'll hear after that will be my own breathing, and the sound of the smell, of my footsteps -- Markus Zusak
The beauty of my work is that my sets cost nothing. That's what I love about being a writer of novels. -- Markus Zusak
One eye open, one still in a dream. -- Markus Zusak
School, as you might imagine, was a terrific failure. Although -- Markus Zusak
That's typically what writers do; we just sit around complaining most of the time. And the better things are going, the more they complain. -- Markus Zusak
I listened to their last, gasping cries. Their vanishing words. I watched their love visions and freed them from their fear. I took them all away, and if ever there was a time I needed distraction, this was it. -- Markus Zusak
It's a lot easier, she realized, to be on the verge of something than to actually be it. This would still take time. -- Markus Zusak
Better that we leave the paint behind," Hans told her, "than ever forget the music. -- Markus Zusak
Only hearts ... They're in the inside of the inside of me. -- Markus Zusak