I’d seen glimpses of a different me. It was a different me because in those increments of time I thought I actually became a winner.The truth, however, is painful.It was a truth that told me...

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...

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)

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...

A GUIDED TOUR OF SUFFERING: To your left, perhaps your right, perhaps even straight ahead, you find a small black room. In it sits a Jew. He is scum. He is starving. He is afraid....

a young man was hung by a rope made of Stalingrad snow

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...

I like the idea that every page in every book can have a gem on it. It’s probably what I love most about writing – that words can be used in a way that’s like...

Stealing it, in a sick kind of sense, was like earning it.

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.

His church is the old one at the edge of town, and I now realize why he’s chosen to live here. The church is too far away for him to really help anyone, so this...

He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist’s suit collection.

I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what couldI tell her about those things that she didn’t already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating...

… tried praying for him …but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Don’t as me why. I hoped that he was okay, but I couldn’t summon the strength to pray for it.

I walked home, seeing all my doubt from the other side. Have you ever seen that? Like when you go on holiday. On the way back, everything is the same but it looks a little...

Hals und Beinbruch, Saukerl.

I guess when someone tells you something they they usually guard, you feel privileged, not because you know something no-one else knows, but because you feel chosen. You feel like that person wants her life...

Sometimes people are beautiful.Not in looks.Not in what they say.Just in what they are.

The bombs were coming-and so was I.

They’re strange, those wars.Full of blood and violence – but full of stories that are equally difficult to fanthom. “It’s true,” people will mutter. “I don’t care if you don’t belive me. It was the...

I actually feel quite self-indulgent at the moment, telling you all about me, me, me.(…) On the other hand, you’re a human -you should understand self obsession.

Already, I know that all of this will stay with me forever. It’ll haunt me, but I also fear it will make me feel grateful. I say fear because at times I really don’t want...

How could she ever know that someone would pick her story up and carry it with him everywhere?

The night is alive with stars, and when I lie down and look up, I get lost up there. I feel like I’m falling, but upward, into the abyss of sky above me.

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.

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.

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...

DÖDENS DAGBOK: PARISARNA Sommaren kom.För boktjuven var allt frid och fröjd. Dör mig – var himlen judefärgad. När deras kroppar hade slutat söka efter springor i dörren steg deras själar upp. När deras naglar hade...

She was holding desperately on to the words who had saved her life.” The Book Thief

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

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.

We used to languish when we walked, or sidle down the street like dogs that have just done something wrong. Now Rube walks upright, because he’s on the attack.

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 try hard and aim big. People can hate or love my books but they can never accuse me of not trying.

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.

***HERE IS A SMALL FACT*** You are going to die.

In the darkness of my dark-beating heart, I know. He’d have loved it, all right.

So I saw that there was only me. There was only me who could worry about what was happening here, inside these walls of my life. Other people had their own worlds to worry about,...

I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right. – Liesel Meminger

That was when the world wasn’t so big and I could see everywhere. It was when my father was a hero and not a human.

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...

When you looked out my window you could see the whole city crouched under a blanket of car smog.

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

Maybe everyone can live beyond what they’re capable of.

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

1. The desperate Jews – their spirits in my lap as we sat on the roof, next to the steaming chimneys.2. The Russian soldiers – taking only small amounts of ammunition, relying on the fallen...

a young man is still a boy, and a boy sometimes has the right to be stubborn.

She was like a lone angel floating above the surface of the earth, laughing with delight because she could fly but crying out of loneliness.

Tears were frozen to the book theif’s face.

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