Markus Zusak Quotes

Feuer soll'n's brunzen fur einen Monat!' she heard her call out. Translation: 'They should all piss fire for a month!

He switched off the light, came back and sat in the chair. In the darkness, Liesel kept her eyes open. She was watching the words.

How do you tell if something's alive? You check for breathing.

If her soul ever leaks, I want it to land on me.

the dark, the light. What's the difference

An old homeless man confronts me quietly with his beard, his missing teeth, and his poverty.

He would wink at the girl and, clumsily, she'd wink back.

Big things are often just small things that are noticed. - Ed Kennedy

Maxi Taxi, you've got him now, you've got him, Jew boy, you've got him, you've got him!" A small kid with soft tufts of hair, a beaten nose, and swampy eyes, Max was a good head shorter

Even enemies were an inch away from friendship.

Tradition can be a dirty word, especially around Christmas. Families all over the globe get together and enjoy each other's company for all of a few minutes. For an hour, they endure each other. After that, they just manage to stomach each other.

Son, you can't go around painting yourself black, you hear?"
"Why not, Papa?"
"Because they'll take you away."
"Why?"
"Because you shouldn't want to be like black people or Jewish people or anyone who is ... not us."
"Who are Jewish people?"
"You know my oldest customer, Mr. Kaufmann? Where we bought your shoes?"
"Yes."
"Well, he's Jewish."
"I didn't know that. Do you have to pay to be Jewish? Do you need a license?"
...
" ... you've got beautiful blond hair and big safe blue eyes. You should be happy with that; is that clear?

Sitting on the ground, she looked up at her best friend. "Danke," she said. "Thank you."
Rudy bowed. "My pleasure." He tried for a little more. "No point asking if I get a kiss for that, I guess?"
"For bringing my shoes, which you left behind?"
"Fair enough." He held up his hands and continued speaking as they walked on, and Liesel made a concerted effort to ignore him. She only heard the last part. "Probably wouldn't want to kiss you anyway
not if your breath's anything like your shoes."
"You disgust me," she informed him, and she hoped he couldn't see the escaped beginnings of a smile that had fallen from her mouth.

That's when I have to ask him. "Can you really talk like that? Being holy and all?"
"What? Because I'm a priest?" He finishes the dregs of his coffee. "Sure. God knows what's important.

You hide a Jew. You pay. Somehow or other, you must.

A fact regarding Max Vandenburg
He would search the faces on Munich street for a book-thieving girl.

He'd wanted to show his past tormentor what he was capable of, but he also wanted to prove himself to everyone. Now everyone was in the kitchen.

One good punch from Rube on me would send the sky into my head and the clouds into my lungs. I just always tried to stay up.

There were stars. They burned my eyes.

The dog next-door had settled down, and the neighbourhood seemed stunned by this event occurring in our backyard. It was like it could sense it. It could sense some form of tragedy and helplessness being played out, and to tell you the truth, it all surprised me. I was so used to things just going on, oblivious and ignorant to all feeling.

The town itself was a hard, distant storyland; you could see it from afar. There was all the straw-like landscape, and marathons of sky. Around it, a wilderness of low scrub and gum trees stood close by, and it was true, it was so damn true: the people sloped and slouched.

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

Even Rudy stood completely erect, feigning nonchalance, tensing himself against the tension.

Personally, I like a chocolate-covered sky. Dark, dark chocolate. People say it suits me. I do, however, try to enjoy every color I see - the whole spectrum. A billion or so flavors, none of them quite the same, and a sky to slowly suck on. It takes the edge off the stress. It helps me relax.

The conversation of bullets.

That's the sort of thing I'll never know, or comprehend
what humans are capable of.

It felt as though the while globe was dressed in snow. Like it had pulled it on, the way you pull on a jumper.

You can do all manner of underhanded nice things when you have a caustic reputation.

Her face was severe but smiling. "What the hell did you do with my hairbrush, you stupid Saumensch, you little thief? ... The tirade went on for perhaps another minute, with Liesel making a desperate suggestion or two about the possible location of the said brush. It ended abruptly, with Rosa pulling Liesel close, just for a few seconds. Her whisper was almost impossible to hear, even at such close proximity. "You told me to yell at you. You said they'd all believe it." She looked left and right, her voice like needle and thread. "He woke up, Liesel. He's awake." From her pocket, she pulled out the toy soldier with the scratched exterior. "He said to give you this. It was his favorite." ... Before Liesel had a chance to answer, she finished it off. "Well? Answer me! Do you have any other idea where you might have left it?

There were thousands of households throughout that city and there was something happening in all of them. There was some kind of story in each, but self-contained. No one else knew. No one else cared.

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

A statue of the book thief stood in the courtyard ... it's very rare, don't you think, for a statue to appear before it's subject has become famous?

There are skies manufactured by people, punctured and leaking,and there are soft,coal-colored clouds, beating like black hearts

I saw him hip-deep in some icy water, chasing a book, and I saw a boy lying in bed, imagining how a kiss would taste from his glorious next-door neighbor.

The city around us seemed colder than ever again, and I realised that even if it really had sensed something going on, it certainly didn't care. It moved forward again. I could feel it. I could almost hear it laugh and taste it. Close. Watching. Mocking. And it was cold, so cold, as it watched my sister bleeding at the back of our house.

Once, words had rendered Liesel useless, but now, when she sat on the floor, with the mayor's wife at her husband's desk, she felt an innate sense of power. It happened every time she deciphered a new word or pieced together a sentence.

But then, is there cowardice in the acknowledgment of fear? Is there cowardice in being glad that you lived?

I'm twenty years old and look at me
there isn't a thing I want to do

A happening was looming. It was out there somewhere beyond the regular enclosed life that I had been living. It was out there, not waiting, but existing. Being. Perhaps it was only slightly wondering if I would come to it.

Pieces
Sometimes there only seem to be clouds.
Tonight, the clouds hang above me, sulking in the sky. They watch me write the words. I don't even think they bother to read.
I imagine myself in a room, where some shattered pieces are strewn on the floor, in front of me.
As I walk towards them, I have no idea what they are, so I approach with trepidation. They seem to be a puzzle, all torn up and thrown apart. They look injured.
I crouch down and being putting them together, finding each scrap that surrounds my feet.
Gradually, I see the picture form as I put it all together.
Gradually, I see.
These pieces on the ground.
Are made of me.

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

No one had ever given her music before.

And the boy whose hair remained the color of lemons forever.

But when they laugh, you can see the world in their eyes.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph." Papa's hands tightened on the splintery wood. "I'm an idiot."
No, Papa.
You're just a man.

Sometimes she sat against the wall, longing for the warm finger of paint to wander just once more down the side of her nose, or to watch the sandpaper texture of her papa's hands. If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter and bread with only the scent of jam spread out on top of it. It was the best time of her life.

Liesel shrugged away entirely from the crowd and entered the tide of Jews, weaving through them till she grabbed hold of his arm with her left hand. His face fell on her. It reached down as she tripped, and the Jew,the nasty Jew, helped her up. It took all of his strength.

[Mama's] voice was surprisingly calm and caring. As you can imagine, this worried the girl a great deal. She'd have preferred to hear them arguing. Whispering adults hardly inspired confidence.

On the other hand, he was also enjoying the ecstasy of an idea, not daring just yet to envision its complications, dangers, and vicious absurdities. For now, the idea was enough. It was indestructible. Transforming it into reality, well, that was something else altogether. For now, though, let's let him enjoy it.

Our own place is mall perhaps, but when your old man is eaten by his own shadow, you realise that maybe in every house, something so savage and sad and brilliant is standing up, without the world even seeing it.
Maybe that's what these pages of words are about:
Bringing the world to the window.

Papa grinned and pointed at the girl. "Book, sandpaper, pencil," he ordered her, "and accordion!" once she was already gone. Soon, they were on Himmel Street, carrying the words, the music, the washing.

Her knees entered the ground. Her moment had arrived. Still in disbelief, she started to dig. He couldn't be dead. He couldn't be dead. He couldn't - Within seconds, snow was carved into her skin. Frozen blood was cracked across her hands. Somewhere in all the snow, she could see her broken heart, in two pieces. Each half was glowing, and beating under all that white. She realized her mother had come back for her only when she felt the boniness of a hand on her shoulder. She was being dragged away. A warm scream filled her throat.

I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I even 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 ... I AM HAUNTED BY HUMANS.

Their heartbeats fought each other, a mess of rhythm. Liesel tried to eat hers down. The taste of heart was not too cheerful.

Don't think, I told myself. Think nothingness. But even nothingness was something. It was a thought.

I'm afraid, of falling asleep again.

School, as you might imagine, was a terrific failure. Although

It was Russia, January 5, 1943, and just another icy day. Out among the city and snow, there were dead Russians and Germans everywhere. Those who remained were firing into the blank pages in front of them. Three languages interwove. The Russian, the bullets, the German.

Possibly the only good to come out of these nightmares was that it brought Hans Hubermann, her new papa, into the room, to soothe her, to love her.
He came every night and sat with her. The first couple of times, he simply stayed - a stranger to kill the aloneness. A few nights after that, he whispered, "Shhh, I'm here, it's all right." After three weeks he held her. Trust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the brute strength of the man's gentleness, his thereness. The girl knew from the outset that Hans Hubermann would always appear midscream, and he would not leave. (36)

I kept walking. Have you ever done that? Just walk. Just walk and have no idea where you're going? It wasn't a good feeling, but not a bad one either. I felt caged and free at the same time, like it was only myself that wouldn't allow me to feel either great or miserable.

Because a fight's worth nothing if you know from the start that you're going to win it. It's the ones in between that test you. They're the ones that bring questions with them.

Very quickly, very suddenly, words fell through my mind. They landed on the floor of my thoughts, and in there, down there, I started to pick the words up. They were excerpts of truth gathered from inside me.

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

You can kill a man with those words.
No gun.
No bullets.
Just words and a girl.

I did it because you are the epitome of ordinariness.

She laughed and he felt her breath, and he thought about that warmness, how people were warm like that, from inside to out; how it could hit you and disappear, then back again, and nothing was ever permanent--

I see how complicated it is to make a film and how many people are involved and I love the fact that I get to sit in a room on my own and the set costs nothing and the actors cost nothing and I'm the director and it's so simple. You just need a pen and paper to make a book. You don't need a huge budget or a gaffer or a best boy.

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 the rain. (p. 85)

I've seen so many young men over the years who think they're running at other young men. They are not. They're running at me.

Can a wolfe be beautiful?

But for now, happiness throws stones.
It guards itself.
I wait.

Max, Hans, and Rosa I cannot account for, but I know that Liesel Meminger was thinking that if the bombs ever landed on Himmel Street, not only did Max have less chance of survival than everyone else, but he would die completely alone.

She was saying goodbye and she didn't even know it.

She slid a book from the shelf and sat with it on the floor.
She tore a page from the book and ripped it in half. Then a chapter.
Soon, there was nothing but scraps of words lttered between her legs and all around her. The words. Why did they have to exist? Without them, there wouldn't be ant of this.
What good were the words?
The book thief stood and waled carefully to the library door.

She was holding desperately on to the words that had saved her life.

Now I've changed things. I've left my own fingerprints on the world, no matter how small, and it's upset the equilibrium of us

She was suddenly aware of how empty her feet felt inside her shoes.

We grew up together, which is the only reason we're friends. He's actually got a lot of other acquaintances, too, for a few reasons. The first is that he plays soccer in winter and has mates from there. The second and main reason is that he carries on like an idiot. Have you ever noticed that idiots have a lot of friends?
It's just an observation.

Papa was a man with silver eyes, not dead ones.
Papa was an accordion!
But his bellows were all empty.
Nothing went in and nothing came out.

Liesel and Papa made their way through the book, this man was traveling to Amsterdam on business and the snow was shivering outside. The girl loved that- the shivering snow. "That's exactly what it does when it comes down," she told Hans Hubermann.

They ignore the reality that a new version of the same old problem will be waiting at the end of the trip -

A murderer should probably do many things, but he should never, under any circumstances, come home.

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.

It's the sound of my breathing that gets me, pouring down into my lungs and then tripping back up my throat.

You are the epitome of normal.

Outside is dark.
The kitchen light is loud.
It deafens me as I walk towards it.

They were glued down, every last one of them. A packet of souls.
Was it fate?
Misfortune?
Is that what glued them down like that?
Of course not.
Let's not be stupid.
It probably had more to do with the hurled bombs, thrown down by humans hiding in the clouds.

Of course you're real-like any thought or any story. It's real when you're in it.

The music would look Liesel in the face. I know it sounds strange, but that's how it felt to her.

Her wrinkles were like slander. Her voice was akin to a beating with a stick.

Now more than ever, 33 Himmel Street was a place of silence, and it did not go unnoticed that the Duden Dictionary was completely and utterly mistaken, especially with its related words.
Silence was not quiet or calm, and it was not peace.

I think, as the writer, you're always going to mourn something [left out of a film]. But you also just want to know there's a good reason for it being left out. On the whole, you want to give something to somebody creative. The worst thing you can do is say, "Here, be creative, but do it like I want you to do it." I was always very mindful of that.

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

You're a dead man". I hear his voice again, and I see the words on my face when I get back in the cab and look in the rearview mirror.
It makes me think of my life, my nonexistent accomplishments and my overall abilities in incompetence.
"A dead man", I think. He's not far wrong.

War clearly blurred the distinction between logic and superstition

There's ache in her arms and ache in her legs and heart. But on her face is the beauty of the morning.

Clearly, I see it.
I was just about to leave when I found her kneeling there.
A mountain range of rubble was written, designed, erected around her. She was clucthing at a book.

A couple of them were school beauty-queen pretty while a few were that more real-looking type. A realer kind of pretty.

I think only one thing.
Where 's Octavia?
As I get closer to the bottom, I notice that it's water that I'm falling into. It's salty-green and smooth, until ...
I'm driven through the surface and go deeper. I'm surrounded.
I'm drowning. I think. I'm drowning.
But I'm smiling too.

I had to decide what I was going to do, and what I was going to be.
I was standing there, waiting for someone to do something , till I realised the person I was waiting for was myself.