Markus Zusak Quotes

You can't eat books, sweetheart.

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.

The days and nights come apart. I feel them corroding at the seams.

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

She kept watching the words.

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

It's not the place, I think. It's the people. We'd have all been the same anywhere else.

You're far from this. This story is just another few hundred pages of your mind.

I try hard and aim big. People can hate or love my books but they can never accuse me of not trying.

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

When I was growing up, I wanted to be a house painter like my father, but I was always screwing up when I went to work with him. I had a talent for knocking over paint and painting myself into corners. I also realized fairly quickly that painting bored me.

Humans have a talent for escalation. -Death

You want to know what I truly look like? I'll help you out. Find yourself a mirror while I continue.

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.

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.

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.

One was a book thief. The other stole the sky.

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

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

His soul sat up. It met me. Those kinds of souls always do - the best ones. The ones who rise up and say "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. More of them have already found their way to other places.

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.

… 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.

When he moves, a streetlight stabs him, and the words flow out like blood.

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.

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

The paper landed on the table, but the news was stapled to his chest. A tattoo.

There was the gate next, which she(Liesel)clung to. A gang of tears trudged from her eyes as she held on and refused to go inside. People started to gather on the street, until Rosa Hubermann swore at them, after which they reversed back whence they came. ~A TRANSLATION OF ROSA HUBERMANN’S ANNOUNCEMENT~ ‘What are you arseholes looking at?

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

I see Death as the part of us that knows all the time that we're going to die, reminding us to live properly.

Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.

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

Finally, in October 1945, a man with swampy eyes, feathers of hair, and a clean-shaven face walked into the shop. He approached the counter. "Is there someone here by the name of Leisel Meminger?" "Yes, she's in the back," said Alex. He was hopeful, but he wanted to be sure. "May I ask who is calling on her?" Leisel came out. They hugged and cried and fell to the floor.

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.

Everything was good. But it was awful, too.

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.

Yes, I know it. In the darkness of my dark beating heart, I know. He'd have loved it alright. You see? Even Death Has A Heart.

Stealing it, in a sick kind of sense, was like earning it.

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.

in the trees this afternoon, he was a giver of bread and teddy bears.

THE LAST WORDS OF MAX VANDENBURG: You've done enough.

For a moment, I panic. It's that feeling of falling when you know without question, that you've lost control of your car, or made a mistake that's beyond repair. 'What do I do now?' I ask desperately. 'Tell me! What do I do now?' He remains calm. He looks at me closely and says, 'Keep living, Ed... It's only the pages that stop here.

Better that we leave the paint behind," Hans told her, "than ever forget the music.

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.

Even enemies were an inch away from friendship.

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.

The only thing worse than a boy who hates you: a boy that loves 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?

I..." He struggled to answer. "When everything was quiet, I went up to the corridor and the curtain in the livingroom was open just a crack... I could see outside. I watched, only for a few seconds." He had not seen the outside world for twenty-two months. There was no anger or reproach. It was Papa who spoke. How did it look?" Max lifted his head, with great sorrow and great astonishment. "There were stars," he said. "They burned by eyes.