You ever hear a dog cry, Steve? You know, howling so loud it's almost unbearable?' He nodded. 'I reckon they howl like that because they're so hungry it hurts, and that's what I feel in me every day of my life. I'm so hungry to be somethin' - to be somebody. You hear me?' He did. 'I'm not lyin' down ever. Not for you. Not for anyone.' I ended it. 'I'm hungry, Steve.' Sometimes I think they're the best words I've ever said. 'I'm hungry.

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

Everything was good. But it was awful, too.

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.

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.

And I can promise you something, because it was a thing I saw many years later - a vision in the book thief herself - that as she knelt next to Hans Hubermann, she watched him stand and play the accordion. He stood and strapped it on in the alps of broken houses and played the accordion with kindness silver eyes and even a cigarette slouched on his lips. The bellows breathed and the tall man played for Liesel Meminger one last time as the sky was slowly taken away from her.

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.