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Markus Zusak Quotes
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Markus Frank Zusak is an Australian writer. He is best known for The Book Thief and The Messenger , two novels for young adults which have been international best-sellers. He won the annual Margaret A. Edwards Award in 2014 for his contributions to young-adult literature published in the US.

✵ 23. June 1975  •  Other names Markus Frank Zusak, مارکوس زوساک
Markus Zusak photo
Markus Zusak: 214 quotes18 likes

Markus Zusak Quotes

“No matter how many times she was told that she was loved, there was no recognition that the proof was in the abandonment.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“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

Source: I Am the Messenger

“All my friends seem to be smart arses. Don't ask me why. Like many things, it is what it is.”

Markus Zusak

Source: I Am the Messenger

“for some reason, dying men always ask the question they know the answer to. perhaps it's so they can die being right.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“When death captures me," the boy vowed, "he will feel my fist in his face." (31.26)”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“He was waving. "Saukerl," she laughed, and as she held up her hand, she knew completely that he was simultaneously calling her a Saumensch. I think that's as close to love as eleven-year-olds can get.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“There were people everywhere on the city street, but the stranger could not have been more alone if it were empty.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“Of course you're real-like any thought or any story. It's real when you're in it.”

Markus Zusak

Source: I Am the Messenger

“They were French, they were Jews, and they were you.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“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 book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“She was a girl with a mountain to climb.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“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 book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“She kept watching the words.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“The song was born on her breathe and died at her lips.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“One day, Liesel.' he said, 'you'll be dying to kiss me.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

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

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“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 book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“My voice is like a rumour. I'm not sure if it came out or not, or if it is true.”

Markus Zusak

Source: I Am the Messenger

“Don't punish yourself,' she heard her say again, but there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Variant: ... there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing.
Source: The Book Thief

“The question is, what color will everything be at that moment when I come for you? What will the sky be saying?”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“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 book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“When death captures me,' the boy vowed, 'he will feel my fist on his face.'

Personally, I quite like that. Such stupid gallantry.

Yes.

I like that a lot.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“The book thief has struck for the first time – the beginning of an illustrious career.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“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 book Fighting Ruben Wolfe

Source: Fighting Ruben Wolfe

“Liesel's blood had dried inside of her. It crumbled. She almost broke into pieces on the steps.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

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

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“Have you ever noticed that idiots have a lot of friends? It's just an observation.”

Markus Zusak

Source: I Am the Messenger

“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.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“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 book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“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 book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“But then, is there cowardice in the acknowledgment of fear? Is there cowardice in being glad that you lived?”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“The day was gray, the color of Europe.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“I had to decide what I was going to do, and what I was going to be.
I was standing there, waiting for someone to do something, till I realised the person I was waiting for was myself.”

Markus Zusak

Source: Underdog

“If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter and bread with only the scent of jam spread on top of it. It was the best time of her life.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“So many humans.
So many colors.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“I realize that nothing belongs to her anymore and she belongs to everything.”

Markus Zusak

Source: I Am the Messenger

“We both laugh and run and the moment is so thick around me that i feel like dropping into it to let it carry me.”

Markus Zusak

Source: I Am the Messenger

“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

Source: I Am the Messenger

“It's much easier, she realized, to be on the verge of something than to actually be it.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Variant: It's much easier... to be on the verge of something than to actually be it. This would still take time.
Source: The Book Thief

“The Gunman is useless. I know it. He knows it. The whole bank knows it.”

Markus Zusak

Source: I Am the Messenger

“Competence was attractive.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

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

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“Why me?' I ask God.
God says nothing.
I laugh and the stars watch.
It's good to be alive.”

Markus Zusak

Source: I Am the Messenger

“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 book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief