Markus Zusak Quotes

“I have to say that although it broke my heart, I was, and still am, glad I was there.”

“Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes.”

“She took a step and didn't want to take any more, but she did.”

“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.”

“Sometimes people are beautiful.
Not in looks.
Not in what they say.
Just in what they are.”

“At first, she could not talk. Perhaps it was the sudden bumpiness of love she felt for him. Or had she always loved him?”

“Believe it or not--it takes a lot of love to hate you like this.”

“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.”

“A DEFINITION NOT FOUND
IN THE DICTIONARY
Not leaving: an act of trust and love,
often deciphered by children”

“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.”

“I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.”

“Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.”

“I am haunted by humans.”

“He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It’s his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.”

“Even death has a heart.”

“Maybe everyone can live beyond what they're capable of.”

“A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.”

“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.”

“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.”

“If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.”

“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)”

“My heart is so tired”

“She was saying goodbye and she didn't even know it.”

“A small fact:
You are going to die…. does this worry you?”

“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.”

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

“So much good, so much evil. Just add water.”

“It's not a big thing, but I guess it's true--big things are often just small things that are noticed.”

“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.”

“I want words at my funeral. But I guess that means you need life in your life.”

“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.”

“It’s a small story really, about, among other things:

* A girl
* Some words
* An accordionist
* Some fanatical Germans
* A Jewish fist fighter
* And quite a lot of thievery”

“You can't eat books, sweetheart.”

“It was a Monday and they walked on a tightrope to the sun.”

“The words. Why did they have to exist? Without them, there wouldn't be any of this.”

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

“I'd rather chase the sun than wait for it.”

“You can kill a man with those words.
No gun.
No bullets.
Just words and a girl.”

“I'm not the messenger at all.
I'm the message.”

“As always, one of her books was next to her.”

“My arms are killing me.
I didn't know words could be so heavy.”

“… one opportunity leads directly to another, just as risk leads to more risk, life to more life, and death to more death.”

“I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I ever simply estimate it.”

“I think she ate a salad and some soup.
And loneliness.
She ate that, too.”

“Only in today's sick society can a man be persecuted for reading too many books.”

“In years to come, he would be a giver of bread, not a stealer - proof again of the contradictory human being. So much good, so much evil. Just add water.”

“If they killed him tonight, at least he would die alive.”

“It's hard to not like a man who not only notices the colors, but speaks them.”

“Two weeks to change the world, fourteen days to destroy it.”

“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.”

“People die of broken hearts. They have heart attacks. And it's the heart that hurts most when things go wrong and fall apart.”

“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”

“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.”

“Can a person steal happiness? Or is just another internal, infernal human trick?”

“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.”

“I'm just another stupid human.”

“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.”

“You’re a human, you should understand self-obsession.”

“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.”

“You cannot be afraid, Read the book. Smile at it. It's a great book-the greatest book you've ever read.”

“When she came to write her story, she would wonder when the books and the words started to mean not just something, but everything.”