Markus Zusak Quotes - Page 4

I looked at myself in that window, oblivious to all the people around me and I stared and smiled that particular smile. You know that smile that seems to knock you and tell you how pathetic you are? That's the smile I was smiling.
Markus Zusak
When finally she finished and stood herself up, he put his arm around her, best-buddy style, and they walked on. There was no request for a kiss. Nothing like that. You can love Rudy for that, if you like.
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
A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.
Markus Zusak
I watched the sky as it turned from silver to grey to the colour of rain. Even the clouds tried to look the other way.
Markus Zusak
I could smell something. Fear.I could taste it now.It tasted like blood in my mouth, and I could feel it slide through me and open me up when I saw him ...
Markus Zusak
Jesus, Mary …”She said it out loud, the words distributed into a room that was full of cold air and books. Books everywhere! Each wall was armed with overcrowded yet immaculate shelving. It was barely possible to see the paintwork. There were all different styles and sizes of lettering on the spines of the black, the red, the gray, the every-colored books. It was one of the most beautiful things Liesel Meminger had ever seen.With wonder, she smiled.That such a room existed!Even when she tried to wipe the smile away with her forearm, she realized instantly that it was a pointless exercise. She could feel the eyes of the woman traveling her body, and when she looked at her, they had rested on her face.There was more silence than she ever thought possible. It extended like an elastic, dying to break. The girl broke it.“Can I?”The two words stood among acres and acres of vacant, wooden-floored land. The books were miles away.The woman nodded.Yes, you can
Markus Zusak
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.
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
The paper landed on the table, but the news was stapled to his chest. A tattoo.
Markus Zusak
I guess that’s the beauty of books. When they finish they don’t really finish.
Markus Zusak
The book thief has struck for the first time – the beginning of an illustrious career.
Markus Zusak
How does it feel, anyway?"How does what feel?"When you take one of those books?"At that moment, she chose to keep still. If he wants an answer, he'd have to come back, and he did. "Well?" he asked, but again, it was the boy who replied, before Liesel could even open her mouth.It feels good, doesn't it? To steal something back.
Markus Zusak
The point is, it didn’t really matter what the book was about. It was what it meant that was important.
Markus Zusak
She said it out loud, the words distributed into a room that was full of cold air and books. Books everywhere! Each wall was armed with overcrowded yet immaculate shelving. It was barely possible to see paintwork. There were all different styles and sizes of lettering on the spines of the black, the red, the gray, the every-colored books. It was one of the most beautiful things Liesel Meminger had ever seen.With wonder, she smiled.That such a room existed!
Markus Zusak
As always, one of her books was next to her.
Markus Zusak
My arms are killing me. I didn't know words could be so heavy.
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
Best friends one, and now we have almost nothing to say to each other. It was interesting, how he had joined those guys and I just stayed on my own. I didn't like it or dislike it. It was just funny that things had turned out that way.
Markus Zusak
As always, she was carrying the washing. Rudy was carrying two buckets of cold water, or as he put it, two buckets of future ice.
Markus Zusak
Best friends one, and now we have almost nothing to say to each other. It was interesting, how he had joined those guys and I just stayed on my own. I didn't like it or dislike it. It was just funny that things had turned out that way.
Markus Zusak
As always, she was carrying the washing. Rudy was carrying two buckets of cold water, or as he put it, two buckets of future ice.
Markus Zusak
Time will tell, I suppose, or at least, these pages will.
Markus Zusak
My own eyes try to sleep, but they don't. They stay wide awake as time snarls forward and silence drops down, like measured thought.
Markus Zusak
It is early, early morning. It's that time when it's still dark but you know the day is coming. Blue is bleeding through black. Stars are dying.
Markus Zusak
It makes me wonder, Do we spend most of our days trying to remember or forget things? Do we spend most of our time running towards or away from our lives? I don't know.
Markus Zusak
It's funny, don't you think, how time seems to do a lot of things? It flies, it tells, and worst of all, it runs out.
Markus Zusak
She wanted none of those days to end, and it was always with disappointment that she watched the darkness stride forward.
Markus Zusak
For a moment, I debated whether I should tell someone about the words I'd started writing down, but I couldn't. In a way, I felt ashamed, even though my writing was the one thing that whispered okayness in my ear. I didn't speak it, to anyone.
Markus Zusak
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.
Markus Zusak
That's typically what writers do; we just sit around complaining most of the time. And the better things are going, the more they complain.
Markus Zusak
...there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing.
Markus Zusak
Even now, I wonder how much of my life is convinced.
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
Could she smell my breath? Could she hear my cursed circular heart beat revolving like the crime it is in my deathly chest?
Markus Zusak
For two days I went about my business. I travelled the globe as always, handing souls to the conveyor belt of eternity.
Markus Zusak
The scribbled signature black, onto the blinding global white, onto the thick soupy red.
Markus Zusak
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 because more of them have been put out.
Markus Zusak
Death's Diary: 1942 -It was a year for the ages, like 79, like 1346, to just name a few. Forget the scythe, God damn it, I needed a broom or a mop. And I needed a holiday.(...) They say that war is death's best friend, but I must offer you a different point of view on that one. To me, war is like the new boss who expects the impossible. He stands over your shoulder repeating one thing, incessantly. 'Get it done, get it done'. So you work harder. You get the job done. The boss however, does not thank you. He asks for more.
Markus Zusak
Death waits for no man - and if he does, he doesn't usually wait for very long.
Markus Zusak
How do you tell if something's alive? You check for breathing.
Markus Zusak
The bombs were coming-and so was I.
Markus Zusak
It felt as though the whole globe was dressed in snow. Like it has pulled it on, the way you pull on a sweater. Next to the train line, footprints were sunken to their shins. Trees wore blankets of ice. As you may expect, someone has died.
Markus Zusak
Still, they have one thing I envy. Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.
Markus Zusak
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.
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
Grimly, she realized that clocks don't make a sound that even remotely resembles ticking, tocking. It was more the sound of a hammer, upside down, hacking methodically at the earth. It was the sound of a grave.
Markus Zusak
He killed himself for wanting to live.
Markus Zusak
for some reason, dying men always ask the question they know the answer to. perhaps it's so they can die being right.
Markus Zusak
If they killed him tonight, at least he would die alive.
Markus Zusak
... And the boy whose hair remained the color of lemons forever.
Markus Zusak
A halo surrounded the grim reaper nun, Sister Maria. (By the way-I like this human idea of the grim reaper. I like the scythe. It amuses me.)
Markus Zusak
They say that war is death's best friend, but I must offer you a different point of view on that one. To me, war is like the new boss who expects the impossible. He stands over your shoulder repeating one thin, incessantly: 'Get it done, get it done.' So you work harder. You get the job done. The boss, however, does not thank you. He asks for more.
Markus Zusak
It was a year for the ages, like 79, like 1346, to name just a few. Forget the scythe, Goddamn it, I needed a broom or a mop. And I needed a vacation.
Markus Zusak
***HERE IS A SMALL FACT*** You are going to die.
Markus Zusak
I could introduce myself properly, but it's not really necessary. You will know me well enough and soon enough, depending on a diverse range of variables. It suffices to say that at some point in time, I will be standing over you, as genially as possible. Your soul will be in my arms. A color will be perched on my shoulder. I will carry you gently away.
Markus Zusak
A human doesn't have a heart like mine. The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in the right place at the right time. 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. Still, they have one thing I envy. Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.
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
A SMALL PIECE OF TRUTHI do not carry a sickle or scythe.I only wear a hooded black robe when it's cold.And I don't have those skull-like facial features you seem to enjoy pinning on me from a distance. You want to know what I truly look like? I'll help you out. Find yourself a mirror while I continue.
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