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...

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.

It’s much easier . . . to be on the verge of something than to actually be it. This would still take time.

They’re brainless girls, otherwise they wouldn’t be seen dead here. They’re pretty, with ugly, appealing smiles and conversations we can’t hear. They breathe smoke and blow it out, and words drop from their mouths and...

It feels nice to emerge from the lies.

It could be worse. I could be you.

I am haunted by humans.

I had many boxing matches with my brother in the backyard when we were younger, and I guess while other people abhor boxing for its brutality, I also have to admire anyone who climbs into...

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...

And it would show me, once again, that one opportunity leads directly to another, just as risk leads to more risk, life to more life, and death to more death.

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 …

the threat of Jewish competition was taken away, but so were the Jewish customers

See, I was never a guy who had a whole heap of friends to belong to. Besides Greg Fienni, I never really had friends. I kind of stayed on my own. I hated it, but...

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...

And then there’s the sickness I feel from looking at legs I can’t touch, or at lips that don’t smile at me. Or hips that don’t reach for me. And hearts that don’t beat for...

Había una vez un hombre bajito y extraño que decidió tres cosas importantes acerca de su vida:1. Que se haría la raya del pelo en el lado contrario a todos los demás.2. Que se dejaría...

If nothing else, they died fast and they were warm. The boy from the plane, I thought. The one with the teddy bear. Where was Rudy’s confort? Where was someone to alleviate this robbery of...

Usually we walk around constantly believing ourselves. “I’m okay” we say. “I’m alright”. But sometimes the truth arrives on you and you can’t get it off. That’s when you realize that sometimes it isn’t even...

For two days I went about my business. I travelled the globe as always, handing souls to the conveyor belt of eternity.

I guess that’s the beauty of books. When they finish they don’t really finish.

The color of defeat chokes her pupils, even though her nod and smile and uncomfortable sitting motion on the couch indicate that she is not finished yet. She will carry on, like all of us....

The point is, Ilsa Hermann had decided to make suffering her triumph. When it refused to let go of her, she succumbed to it. She embraced it.

There are pieces of me on the ground.

Not a beauty queen. Not one of those. You know the ones. She was real.

I think to be writer you have to enjoy being alone. I was a loner as a teenager and was always drawn to characters in books and films who were at the fringes.

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...

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...

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...

Personally, I think sex should be like math.At school.No one really cares if they’re crap at math. They even proclaim it. They’ll say to anyone, “Yeah, I don’t mind science and English, but I’m absolutely...

I told her about school and how I sat on a wall there and felt stories and words move through me …

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...

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

A small fact:You are going to die….does this worry you?

I’m not one of these ‘the characters write themselves; the story just fell out of me’ kind of writers. Wish it was like that.

If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.

Still, they have one thing I envy. Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.

July 24, 6:03 A.M.The laundry was warm and the rafters were firm, and Michael Holzapfel jumped from the chair as if it were a cliff…Michael Holzapfel knew what he was doing. He killed himself for...

I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that’s where they begin. Their great skills is their capacity to escalate.

Have you ever noticed that idiots have a lot of friends? It’s just an observation.

I am in all truthfulness attempting to be cheerful about this whole topic, though most people find themselves hindered in believing me, no matter my protestations. Please, trust me. I most definitely can be cheerful....

you don’t need eyes.

No matter how many times she was told that she was loved, there was no recognition that the proof was in the abandonment.

Shadows of cloud lurked in the water, like holes the sun forgot about.

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...

Could she smell my breath? Could she hear my cursed circular heart beat revolving like the crime it is in my deathly chest?

I was always reading books when I should have been doing math and the rest of it.

I love and hate this place because it is full of words.

It would then be brought abruptly to an end, for the brightness had shown suffering the way.

He killed himself for wanting to live.

All four of us were young and undaunted and our smiles were so strong that it made me smile even then on the couch, with a kind of loss.