Markus Zusak Quotes

page 2

“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.”

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

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

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

“What do you want to kiss me for? I'm filthy.'- Liesel
So am I.'- Rudy”

“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.”

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

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

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

“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?”

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

“It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on, coughing and searching, and finding.”

“She kept watching the words.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.)”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“Somewhere in all the snow, she could see her broken heart, in two pieces.”

“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…”

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

“And I stop listening to me, because to put it bluntly, I tire me.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“So many humans.
So many colors.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“… to swear with a ferocity that can only be described as a talent.”

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

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

“Competence was attractive.”

“… And the boy whose hair remained the color of lemons forever.”

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

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

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

“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.”