Markus Zusak Quotes

She gave 'The Dream Carrier' to Max as if words alone could nourish him.

I always marvel at the humans' ability to keep going. They always manage to stagger on even with tears streaming down their faces.

The words. Why did they have to exist? Without them, there wouldn't be any of this.

You don't shoot a dog when it is already dead.

An attribute of Rosa Hubermann, she was a good woman for a crisis.

Of course, I'm being rude. I'm spoiling the ending, not only of the entire book, but of this particular piece of it. I have given you two events in advance, because I don't have much interest in building mystery. Mystery bores me. It chores me. I know what happens and so do you. It's the machinations that wheel us there that aggravate, perplex, interest, and astound me. There are many things to think of. There is much story.

Liesel observed the strangeness of her foster father's eyes. They were made of kindness, and silver.

You'll have days of complete lack of faith in your abilities. But you have to keep coming back. That's when you know you're a writer - when you take the failures and appear at the desk again, over and over again.

A fighter can be a winner, but that doesn't make a winner a fighter.

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.

He was the crazy one who had painted himself black and defeated the world. She was the book thief without the words. Trust me, though, the words were on their way, and when they arrived, Liesel would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she would wring them out like rain.

Why me?' I ask God. God says nothing. I laugh and the stars watch. It's good to be alive.

Goodbye, Papa, you saved me. You taught me to read. No one can play like you. I'll never drink champagne. No one can play like you." -Liesel

I watch the beauty for as long as I can, then turn and face the rest of it.

One day, Liesel.' he said, 'you'll be dying to kiss me.

A DEFINITION NOT FOUND IN THE DICTIONARY Not leaving: an act of trust and love, often deciphered by children

Only hearts... They're in the inside of the inside of me.

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

All told, she owned fourteen books, but she saw her story as being made up predominantly of ten of them. Of those ten, six were stolen, one showed up at the kitchen table, two were made for her by a hidden Jew, and one was delivered by a soft, yellow-dressed afternoon.

Handfuls of frosty water can make almost anyone smile, but it cannot make them forget.

The scrawled words of practice stood magnificently on the wall by the stairs, jagged and childlike and sweet. They looked on as both the hidden Jew and the girl slept, hand to shoulder. They breathed. German and Jewish lungs.

How'd it feel?" Rube asked himself. "I don't know exactly, but it made me want to howl.

So many humans. So many colors.

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

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.

The consequence of this is that I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both.

They'd been standing like that for thirty seconds of forever.

It was the beginning of the greatest Christmas ever. Little food. No presents. But there was a snowman in their basement.

You see, to me, for just a moment, despite all of the colors that touch and grapple with what I see in this world, I will often catch an eclipse when a human dies. I've seen millions of them. I've seen more eclipses than I care to remember

Mistakes, mistakes, it's all I seem capable of at times.

I'd been in love with her for years. I never left this suburban town. I didn't go to university. I went to Audrey.

Somewhere in all the snow, she could see her broken heart, in two pieces.

As always, one of her books was next to her.

A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.

She tore a page from the book and ripped it in half. Then a chapter. Soon, there was nothing but scraps of words littered between her legs and all around her. The words. Why did they have to exist? Without them, there wouldn't be any of this. Without words, the Führer was nothing. There would be no limping prisoners, no need for consolation or wordly tricks to make us feel better. What good were the words? She said it audibly now, to the orange-lit room. "What good are the words?

I say, 'Don't lose your heart, Rube.' And very clearly, without moving, my brother answers me. He says, 'I'm not tryin' to lose it, Cam. I'm tryin' to find it.

...one opportunity leads directly to another, just as risk leads to more risk, life to more life, and death to more death.

The happening that happened was that I met this girl.

She was a girl with a mountain to climb.

I find writing extremely difficult. I usually have to drag myself to my desk, mainly because I doubt myself. And it's getting harder because I want to improve with every book.

I thought what if death is more like thinking, well, war is like the boss at your shoulder, constantly wanting more, wanting more, wanting more, and then that gave me the idea that Death is weary, he's fatigued, and he's haunted by what he sees humans do to each other because he's on hand for all of our great miseries.

Somewhere, far down, there was an itch in his heart, but he made it a point not to scratch it. He was afraid of what might come leaking out.

I'm just another stupid human.

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.

Even now, I wonder how much of my life is convinced.

There were stars. They burned my eyes.

A REASSURING ANNOUNCEMENT Please, be calm, despite that previous threat. I am all bluster - I am not violent. I am not malicious. I am a result.

Each night, Liesel would step outside, wipe the door, and watch the sky. Usually it was like spillage - cold and heavy, slippery and gray - but once in a while some stars had the nerve to rise and float, if only for a few minutes. On those nights, she would stay a little longer and wait. Hello, stars.