The human child – so much cannier at times than the stupefyingly ponderous adult.

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.

I stood there and stared, into the sky and at the city around me. I stood, hands at my side, and I saw what had happened to me and who I was and the way things would always be for me. Truth. There was no more wishing, or wondering. I knew who I was, and what I would always do. I believed it, as my teeth touched and my eyes were overrun.

an expression of surprise falls from her face, though she's trying to keep it. it breaks off and she seems to catch it and fidget with it in her hands.

Clearly," said Arthur,"you're an idiot- but you're our kind of idiot. Come on.

The commitment had disappeared, and although he still watched the imagined glory of stealing, she could see now he was not believing. He was trying to believe it, and that’s never a good sign.

I just know that right now, we want to be proud. For once. We want to take the struggle and rise above it. We want to frame it, live it, survive it. We want to put it in our mouths and taste it and never forget it, because it makes us strong.