Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.

It's my heart that is tired. A thirteen-year-old heart shouldn't feel like this.

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.

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.

She was like a lone angel floating above the surface of the earth, laughing with delight because she could fly but crying out of loneliness.

Make sure you live,' she said. 'As decent as you can. I know you'll make mistakes, but sometimes you're meant to, okay?

Smile with instinct, then lick your wounds in the darkest of dark corners. Trace the scars back to your own fingers and remember them.