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

The orange flames waved at the crowd as paper and print dissolved inside them. Burning words were torn from their sentences.

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.

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

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.

I'm sorry. I shouldn't be asking such things...' She let the sentence die its own death

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.