Book Thief Quotes

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) ~ Markus Zusak

She walked down the basement steps. She saw an imaginary framed photo seep into the wall - a quiet-smiled secret. No more than a few meters, it was a long walk to the drop sheets and the assortment of paint cans that shielded Max Vandenburg. She removed the sheets closest to the wall until there was a small corridor to look through. The first part of him she saw was his shoulder, and through the slender gap, she slowly, painfully, inched her hand in until it rested there. His clothing was cool. He did not wake.
She could feel his breathing and his shoulder moving up and down ever so slightly. For a while, she watched him. Then she sat and leaned back.
Sleepy air seemed to have followed her.
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. ~ Markus Zusak

For at least twenty minutes she handed out the story. The youngest kids were soothed by her voice, and everyone else saw visions of the whistler running from the scene. Liesel did not. The book thief saw only the mechanics of the words
their bodies stranded on the paper, beaten down for her to walk on. Somewhere, too, in the gaps between a period and the next capital letter, there was also Max. She remembered reading to him when he was sick. It he in the basement? she wondered. Or is he stealing a glimpse of the sky again? ~ Markus Zusak

Make no mistake, the woman had a heart. She had a bigger one that people would think. There was a lot in it, stored up, high in miles of hidden shelving. Remember that she was the woman with the instrument strapped to her body in the long, moon-slit night. ~ Markus Zusak

Summer came.
For the book thief, everything was going nicely.
For me, the sky was the color of Jews.
When their bodies had finished scouring for gaps in the door, their souls rose up. When their fingernails had scratched at the wood and in some cases were nailed into it by the sheer force of desperation, their spirits came toward me, into my arms, and we climbed out of those shower facilities, onto the roof and up, into eternity's certain breadth. They just kept feeding me. Minute after minute. Shower after shower. ~ Markus Zusak

My friend Markus Zusak wrote a story from the point of view of death, 'The Book Thief.' I thought that's a great idea, where your omniscient narrator is death. I'm glad he had that idea because I wouldn't have been able to work so well with it. ~ Shaun Tan

She had her whole death ahead of her ~ Markus Zusak

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

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. ~ Markus Zusak

She gathered the books like clouds and words poured down like rain. ~ Markus Zusak

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

You might well ask just what the hell he was thinking. The answer is, probably nothing at all.He'd probably say he was exercising his God-given right to stupidity. ~ Markus Zusak

On many counts, taking a boy like Rudy Steiner was robbery
so much life, so much to live for
yet somehow, I'm certain he would have loved to see the frightening rubble and the swelling of the sky on the night he passed away. He'd have cried and turned and smiled if only he could have seen the book thief on her hands and knees, next to his decimated body. He'd have been glad to witness her kissing his dusty, bomb-hit lips.
Yes, I know it.
In the darkness of my dark-beating heart, I know. He'd have loved it all right.
You see?
Even death has a heart. ~ Markus Zusak

I left drama school to do 'The Book Thief' - it was a real trip going straight from school kind of right into it, but I feel like the momentum of being in school put me in a good mindset as far as going into it as a learning experience. ~ Ben Schnetzer

Where Hans Hubermann and Erik Vandenburg were ultimately united by music, Max and Liesel were held together by the quiet gathering of words. ~ Markus Zusak

Don't make me happy. Please, don't fill me up and let me think that something good can come of any of this. Look at my bruises. Look at this graze. Do you see the graze inside me? Do you see it growing before your very eyes, eroding me? I don't want to hope for anything anymore. ~ Markus Zusak

Lastly, the Hubermanns. Hans. Papa. He was tall in the bed and I could see the silver through his eyelids. His soul sat up. It met me. Those kind of souls always do--the best ones. The ones who rise up and say, "I know who you are and I am ready. Not that i want to go, of course, but I will come." Those souls are always light becausre more of them have been put out............ Lisel. His soul whispered it as I carried him. ~ Marcus Zusak

She could have shot herself, scratched herself or indulged in other forms of self-mutilation, but she chose what she probably felt was the weakest option-to at least endure the discomfort of the weather. ~ Markus Zusak

The book thief lay in bed that night, and the boy only came before she closed her eyes. He was one member of a cast, for Liesel was always visited in that room. Her papa stood and called her half a woman. Max was writing The Word Shaker in the corner. Rudy was naked by the door. Occasionally her mother stood on a bedside train platform. And far away, in the room that stretched like a bridge to a nameless town, her brother, Werner, played in the cemetery snow. ~ Markus Zusak

When death captures me," the boy vowed, "he will feel my fist in his face." (31.26) ~ Markus Zusak

After another ten minutes, the gates of thievery would open just a crack, and Liesel Meminger would widen them a little further and squeeze through.
***TWO QUESTIONS***
Would the gates shut behind her?
Or would they have the goodwill to let her back out?
As Liesel would discover, a good thief requires many things.
Stealth. Nerve. Speed.
More important than any of those things, however, was one final requirement.
Luck.
Actually.
Forget the ten minutes.
The gates open now. ~ Markus Zusak

The Germans in basements were pitiable, surely, but at least they had a chance. That basement was not a washroom. They were not sent there for a shower. For those people, life was still achievable. ~ Markus Zusak

There's a multitude of stories (...) that I allow to distract me as I work, just as the colours do. I pick them up in the unluckiest, unlikliest places and I make sure to remember them as I go about my work. The Book Thief is one such story. ~ Markus Zusak

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? ~ Markus Zusak

She was a Jew feeder without a question in the world on that man's first night in Molching. She was an arm reacher, deep into a mattress, to deliver a sketchbook to a teenage girl. (84.25) ~ Markus Zusak

She leaned down and looked at his lifeless face and Leisel kissed her best friend, Rudy Steiner, soft and true on his lips. He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist's suit collection. She kissed him long and soft, and when she pulled herself away, she touched his mouth with her fingers ... She did not say goodbye. She was incapable, and after a few more minutes at his side, she was able to tear herself from the ground. It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on ... ~ Markus Zusak

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

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. ~ Markus Zusak

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

The book thief has struck for the first time – the beginning of an illustrious career. ~ Markus Zusak

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. ~ Markus Zusak

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. ~ Markus Zusak

The buildings appear to be glued together, mostly small houses and apartment blocks that looked nervous. There is murky snow spread out like carpet. There is concrete, empty hat-stand trees, and gray air. ~ Markus Zusak

There were heavy beams - planks of sun - falling randomly, wonderfully, onto the road. Clouds arched their backs to lok behind as they started again to move on. 'It's such a beautiful day,' he said, and his voice was in many pieces. A great day to die. A great day to die, like this. ~ Markus Zusak

Hair the color of lemons,'" Rudy read. His fingers touched the words. "You told him about me?"
At first, Liesel could not talk. Perhaps it was the sudden bumpiness of love she felt for him. Or had she always loved him? It's likely. Restricted as she was from speaking, she wanted him to kiss her. She wanted him to drag her hand across and pull her over. It didn't matter where. Her mouth, her neck, her cheek. Her skin was empty for it, waiting.
Years ago, when they'd raced on a muddy field, Rudy was a hastily assembled set of bones, with a jagged, rocky smile. In the trees this afternoon, he was a giver of bread and teddy bears. He was a triple Hitler Youth athletics champion. He was her best friend. And he was a month from his death.
Of course I told him about you," Liesel said. ~ Markus Zusak

Steadily, the room shrank, till the book thief could touch the shelves within a few small steps. She ran the back of her hand along the first shelf, listening to the shuffle of her fingernails gliding across the spinal cord of each book. It sounded like an instrument, or the notes of running feet. She used both hands. She raced them. One shelf against the other. And she laughed. Her voice was sprawled out, high in her throat, and when she eventually stopped and stood in the middle of the room, she spent many minutes looking from the shelves to her fingers and back again.

How many books had she touched?

How many had she felt?

She walked over and did it again, this time much slower, with her hand facing forward, allowing the dough of her palm to feel the small hurdle of each book. It felt like magic, like beauty, as bright lines of light shone down from a chandelier. Several times, she almost pulled a title from its place but didn't dare disturb them. They were too perfect. ~ Markus Zusak

Yes, I read it," she replies. "I most certainly did read it. It kept me up all night, I was so angry with it. At this stage of my life, I would rather not be kept up all night. Nor do I wish to have my tears jerked at the rate at which this novel jerked them. The next time you recommend a book to me, I hope you'll keep that in mind, Mr. Fikry." "I will," he says. "And I do apologize, Mrs. Cumberbatch. Most of our customers have rather liked The Book Thief. ~ Gabrielle Zevin

I tried not to sleep because I was afraid of who might be there when I woke up. ~ Markus Zusak

She enjoyed the small fragments of pain. ~ Markus Zusak

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. ~ Markus Zusak

He stood a few meters from the step and spoke with great conviction, great joy.
"Alles ist Scheisse," he announced.
All is shit. ~ Markus Zusak

If your eyes could speak, what would they say?. ~ Markus Zusak

It was a nice dream, and an impossible one. ~ Markus Zusak

What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee? ... Was ever anything so civil? ~ Anthony Trollope

I've got a book coming out soon so I just must get some weight off. ~ Jilly Cooper

This is a landmark work in the history of African American studies and American intellectual history. Writing with verve, Jackson brings to life a large cast of characters and traces an ongoing conversation among the writers and critics of this period. This book is likely to become a model for a new generation of scholars, both for the breadth of its engagement and the depth of its archival research. ~ Werner Sollors

The bookstore itself was cozy but not crowded, with posters of classic novels framed and hung on the walls. And it was filled with that wonderful book smell that anyone who's ever even been near a book will recognize. It's more than the smell of paper; it's the smell of the high seas and adventure and far off worlds. It's the smell of a billion billion worlds, each a portal to somewhere new. ~ Shaun David Hutchinson

What havoc has been made of books through every century of the Christian era? Where are fifty gospels, condemned as spurious by the bull of Pope Gelasius? Where are the forty wagon-loads of Hebrew manuscripts burned in France, by order of another pope, because suspected of heresy? Remember the 'index expurgatorius', the inquisition, the stake, the axe, the halter and the guillotine. ~ John Adams

I'm the best kind of thief, the kind that leaves behind items equal in value to those he's stolen. ~ Holly Black

The final section of the book returns to ourselves and asks how it is possible to think about our existence in the light of the strange world described by physics. The ~ Carlo Rovelli

An ex-libris is to the book what a collar is to the dog ~ Edward Gordon Craig

I'm reading a book that actually scares me. It is not a form of fear that is embodied in some irrational phobia of a specific object, living being, or an event, but a fear of words, of actions of beings towards one another, how one word or command wrongly distributed can destroy someone or many people. How following blindly into the paths of something you truly believe is right without any rationale to back it up or the thought of the consequences it can cause may blindly lead others to their death. How in that moment, thinking you're doing it for the right reasons, you ignore all the laws of nature that tell you that human life is sacred and that no one man's ideals can ever compensate for its loss. To have the power to destroy and cause suffering without much care. This is a fear of what humanity is turning into, and such a future truly scares me. ~ Aliaa El-Nashar

Those who don't give up physical books for a Kindle love their self-image as a book lover more than they love books. ~ Malav Karkar

I really loved this book. I did for a school book report last year and I really got into it I just couldnt take my eyes of! You really absolutley need to read this book! ~ Ann M. Martin

While much of modern behavioral and social science treats individuals as autonomous agents, it is absolutely clear that the way we think and act is enormously influenced by the culture in which we live. It also is clear that the major elements of modern culture-science, technology, law, music, and religion-have evolved over time in a quite concrete sense of the term. Mesoudi makes these arguments very well and his book is a very good read. ~ Richard R. Nelson

This book has been written against a background of both reckless optimism and reckless despair. It holds that Progress and Doom are two sides of the same medal; that both are articles of superstition, not of faith. It ~ Hannah Arendt

I'm a writer. I never expected to be recognised on the street. I never expected to get that kind of coverage, good or bad. I never expected to sell as many books as I have. ~ James Frey

All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention - of barbarian invention - is to read it. Read it as you would any other book; think of it as you would of any other; get the bandage of reverence from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the throne of your brain the cowled form of superstition - then read the Holy Bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

If anything could be a book, there was no telling what you could learn, if you knew what to look for. Smooth river stones spelled out across a mossy floor. Lines drawn in the sand. Or inscribed on the side of a fallen log, half-obscured by twigs and mulch: This is a book. ~ Traci Chee

In 'Me Before You,' the two characters popped into my head fully formed, which is really strange and unusual. Other books, I sit on them for two or three months. I have a whole routine: I buy a nice book; I hand-write all their characteristics. I put them through little tests just to see how they would react to things. ~ Jojo Moyes

But charity is the PURE LOVE OF CHRIST, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.
Moroni 7 ~ The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints

But every living soul is a book of their own history, which sits on the ever-growing shelf in the library of human memories. ~ Jack Gantos

Unequal Democracy is the sort of book to which every political scientist should aspire
it is methodologically rigorous, conceptually serious, and above all, it addresses urgent concerns of our fellow citizens. As Bartels shows, much of what we think we know about the politics of economic inequality is dead wrong. Bartels's perplexing and often unexpected discoveries should help refocus the gathering public debate about inequality and what to do about it. ~ Robert D. Putnam

Though my appetite for food grew frail, my hunger for books was constant. ~ Diane Setterfield

It could have been so beautiful.
The way our elbows always collide and not a single word was needed to make each other laugh. I laughed at your existence, I said, and you laughed even harder and that's how we spent our time.
It could have been so beautiful
the way the first hit felt good and something to deserve
because I've read every psychology book you can find on human behaviour and know for a fact that anger grows from caring
too much
and so it was a privilege to be in the war zone with someone like you.
How much you must have cared to hit that well
and that hard
and I remember saying thank you
and I'm sorry
at the same time
because what else is there to say. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

He might have been a thief and a liar and a cheat, but he was a good person. ~ Judy Blundell

Well, what can I say? I guess I thought that we didn't have to get going right away, so I sat down on my bed---there wasn't much else to sit on---and suggested that we might have a drink or something first. But do you know what she did then? She asked me to leave. She ordered me out of my own home, as if that was the most natural thing in the world. Obviously I refused. I was like: 'I do actually live here.' But she said: 'Piss off, get lost' and I didn't see what choice I had so I was out for a while. When I got back she was lying there on my bed, smoking---how sick is that? And reading a book about string theory or something. Maybe I gave her some sort of dodgy look, what do I know, and she said that she wasn't planning on having sex with me, not even a little. 'Not even a little' she said, and I don't think she looked me in the eye once. She just announced that we'd had a Trogan, a RAT, and that she recognized the pattern in the breach, the level of originality in the programming. 'You've been blown,' she said. And then she walked out,'
"Without saying goodbye?"
"Without a single damn word,"
"Christ. ~ David Lagercrantz

…everybody should write one book. There is a book in each of us. It is just a matter of bringing it out. Some people are capable and willing to do that, some are not." (Ch.20) ~ Stevan V. Nikolic

That book taught me that by reading, I could live more intensely. It could give me back the sight I had lost. For that reason alone, a book that didn't matter to anyone changed my life. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon

John McPhee's 1989 book The Control of Nature, for ~ Douglas Brinkley

When I first told people I was writing a book, some would say that was interesting, but others thought it was some holiday project and I would lose interest. I think my parents thought the same thing, and they were surprised when I kept going. I'm not sure I thought I would keep going, but then it became a big part of my life. ~ Alexandra Adornetto

I feel that I'm an essayist and that my best work gets done in that form. I wanted to do a book where the essays could exist on their own terms. A book that was neither a book of essays that were shoehorned into a memoir, nor [one where] the essays had been published elsewhere first, [because] then they would kind of bear the marks of those publications. ~ Meghan Daum

I even read that book you liked so much. The one with the apple on the cover. Wow! That Edward is ... how did you put it ... dreamy? ~ Colleen Hoover

The Yogic scriptures say that God responds to the sacred prayers and efforts of human beings in any way whatsoever that mortals choose to worship - just so long as those prayers are sincere. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

In the weeks that followed, Elizabeth discovered to her pleasure that she could ask Ian any question about any subject and that he would answer her as fully as she wished. Not once did he ever patronize her when he replied, or fend her off by pointing out that, as a woman, the matter was truly none of her concern-or worse-that the answer would be beyond any female's ability to understand. Elizabeth found his respect for her intelligence enormously flattering-particularly after two astounding discoveries she made about him:
The first occurred three days after their wedding, when they both decided to spend the evening at home, reading.
That night after supper, Ian brought a book he wanted to read from their library-a heavy tome with an incomprehensible title-to the drawing room. Elizabeth brought Pride and Prejudice, which she'd been longing to read since first hearing of the uproar it was causing among the conservative members of the ton. After pressing a kiss on her forehead, Ian sat down in the high-backed chair beside hers. Reaching across the small table between them for her hand, he linked their fingers together, and opened his book. Elizabeth thought it was incredibly cozy to sit, curled up in a chair beside him, her hand held in his, with a book in her lap, and she didn't mind the small inconvenience of turning the pages with one hand.
Soon, she was so engrossed in her book that it was a full half-hour before she noticed how swiftly Ian turned the pages o ~ Judith McNaught

A good education is a synthesis of book learning and involvement in social action, because each enrich the other. The accumulation of knowledge, while fascinating in itself, is not sufficient without action ~ Howard Zinn

After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations. ~ H.L. Mencken

He had read about evil in Efanor's little book, and how it permeated the doings of Men, but he had never foud such doings evil, rather good and bad ... but none without self-interest, none he could not understand even in terms of his own will to have his way. ~ C.J. Cherryh

Libraries are where most of us really fall in love with books, where we can browse and choose on our own. Its really one of the first autonomous things we do, picking the books we want to read. ~ Kim Boykin

There was no really good true war book during the entire four years of the war. The only true writing that came through during the war was in poetry. One reason for this is that poets are not arrested as quickly as prose writers. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Some things definitely work better on film than in books. Introspection is great in books but it doesn't work on film. Anything with high intensity, whether it's a love scene, a car chase, a fight scene - those things work so well on film and oftentimes they can tell a much broader part of the story. ~ Nicholas Sparks

When a thing has been said and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it. ~ Anatole France

I think fans are just obsessed with the 'Twilight' saga and then within it they might have preferences between if they're Team Jacob, Team Edward or Team Jasper. It just comes down to them loving the whole thing, and if they can get any of the boys from the book they are fine with that. ~ Kellan Lutz

As I read you I fell in love with the holes between your words and I loved you most on the days you could not love yourself. ~ Jenim Dibie

She tipped her head back and laughed with gusto, the sound so full and lovely that my own amusement crashed to a halt and I could do nothing but stare. The notes of her laughter twirled through the air like butterflies alight on the breeze. ~ Connilyn Cossette

A novel is like a gland pill - it nips off the cream of my hysterics and gets them running on track in a book where they belong instead of rioting all over my person. ~ Dawn Powell

Governments from the top fail as often as those from the bottom; and every great failure brings a sad social reaction, thousands and millions of helpless men laying down their lives in the unhappy process. Why may not statesmen study the past and avoid such catastrophes?
Delivered in his capacity as the American Ambassador to Germany, on October 12, 1933, in a speech to the Berlin branch of the American Chamber of Commerce, quoted in Erik Larson's book, In the Garden of Beasts. ~ William E. Dodd

One of the greatest sins in any story is false suspense. The kind of 'suspense' that disintegrates the moment you give your reader one second to think about it. And it's an easy trap to fall into, so watch carefully for it. If your story hinges on the question, 'Will Superman be pushed so far in his battle against Lex Luthor that he'll have to kill him?', or if your big cliffhanger moment is, 'Wow, is Spider-Man really dead this time?', then I understand Food Lion is hiring. ~ Mark Waid

There is nothing nicer than nodding off while reading. Going fast asleep and then being woken by the crash of the book on the floor, then saying to yourself, well it doesn't matter much. An admirable feeling. ~ A.J.P. Taylor

In bed at night, I could be reading some book, and I'll come across a sentence that's totally unrelated to some scene I did years ago. But I'll play the scene back in my mind and think, I did that wrong - I should've opened the door more slowly. ~ Liam Neeson