Something I'd like to be perfect at? ... Loving you,' I said. The words climbed from my mouth. 'I'd want to be perfect at loving you.

She was a girl with a mountain to climb.

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.

There was once a strange, small man. He decided three important details about his life: 1. He would part his hair from the opposite side to everyone else. 2. He would make himself a small, strange mustache. 3. He would one day rule the world. ...Yes, the Fuhrer decided that he would rule the world with words.

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

...there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing.

I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.