Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.

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...

If your eyes could speak, what would they say?

We are wolves, which are wild dogs, and this is our place in the city. We are small and our house is small on our small urban street. We can see the city and the...

Make sure you live,’ she said. ‘As decent as you can. I know you’ll make mistakes, but sometimes you’re meant to, okay?

The city buildings in the distance are holding up the sky, it seems.

An eleven-year-old girl is many things, but she is not stupid.

Even death has a heart.

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...

Stealing is what the army does. Taking your father, and mine.

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.

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...

She took a step and didn’t want to take any more, but she did.

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.

On June 23, 1942, there was a group of French Jews in a German prison, on Polish soil. The first person I took was close to the door, his mind racing, then reduced to pacing,...

Rudy handed it back. “Speaking of which, I think we’re both slightly in for it when we get home. You especially.””Why me?””You know- your mama.””What about her?” Liesel was exercising the blatant right of every...

A small but noteworthy note. I’ve seen so many young men over the years who think they’re running at other young men. They are not. They are running at me.

***A KEY WORD*** Imagined

And when we finally stood up and turned to face the world, I could feel something climbing through me. I could feel it on its hands and knees inside me, rising up, rising up –...

The orange flames waved at the crowd as paper and print dissolved inside them. Burning words were torn from their sentences.

He was skinny with soft hair, and his thick, murky eyes watched as the stranger played one more song in the heavy room. From face to face, he looked on as the man played and...

You can’t eat books, sweetheart.

The happening that happened was that I met this girl …

I’m not a writer who refuses to talk about a book until I’ve finished.

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.)

It feels like the mornings clap their hands.To make me wake.

People observe the colors of a day at its beginnings and ends, but to me it’s quiet clear that a day merges through a multitude of shades and intonations, with each passing moment.

Ed?” Ritchie says later. We’re still standing in the water. “There’s only one thing I want.””What’s that, Ritchie?”His answer is simple.”To want.

There was an itchy lung for a last cigarette and an immense, magnetic pull toward the basement, for the girl who was his daughter and was writing a book down there he hoped to read...

She didn’t see him watching as he played, having no idea that Hans Hubermann’s accordion was a story. In the times ahead, that story would arrive at 33 Himmel Street in the early hours of...

My mouth opened.It happened.Yes, with my head thrown into the sky, I started howling.Arms stretched out next to me, I howled, and everything came out of me. Visions pored up my throat and past voices...

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

I want words at my funeral. But I guess that means you need life in your life.

Death waits for no man – and if he does, he doesn’t usually wait for very long.

So many people chased after me in that time, calling my name, asking me to take them with me. Then there was the small percentage who called me casually over and whispered with their tightend...

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

Often I wish this would all be over, Liesel, but then somehow you do something like walk down the basement steps with a snowman in your hands.

sometimes the human race likes to crank things up a little. They increase the production of bodies and their escaping souls.

The city was dark except for the building lights that seemed to appear like sores – like bandaids had been ripped off to expose the city’s skin.

And you’re Cameron Wolfe. That’ gotta start meaning somethin’ boy. That’s gotta start churnin’ inside us, making us wanna be someone for those names, and not just another couple of guys who amounted to nothin’...

In truth, I think he was afraid. Rudy Steiner was scared of the book thief’s kiss. He must have longed for it so much. He must have loved her so incredibly hard. So that he...

His soul sat up. It met me. Those kinds 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...

As we walk back, it feels like the city is engulfing us. Adrenalin still pours through our veins. Sparks flow through to our fingers. We’ve still been running in the mornings, but the city’s different...

As the kids dance around the front yard under the night sky and the lights, I see something. Lua and Marie are holding hands.They look like they’re so happy, just inside this moment, watching the...

The pages and the words are my world, spread out before your eyes and for your hand to touch. Vaguely, I can see you face looking down into me, as I look back. Do you...

He was the second snowman to be melting away before her eyes, only this one was different. It was a paradox. The colder he became, the more he melted.

In years to come, he would be a giver of bread, not a stealer – proof again of the contradictory human being. So much good, so much evil. Just add water.

… 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.

I procrastinate in spades. In my defence, I also try to have all other distractions solved before I can concentrate on writing. My small theory is that to write for three hours, you need to...

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...