For some reason, dying men always ask questions they know the answer to. Perhaps it’s so they can die being right.
It’s impeccable how brutal the truth can be at times. You can only admire it.
They were eating in the kitchen. Looking at the spoonfuls of pea soup entering Mama’s mouth, she decided to shift her focus to Papa. “There’s something.
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.
Once, words had rendered Liesel useless, but now, when she sat on the floor, with the mayor’s wife at her husband’s desk, she felt an innate sense of power. It happened every time she deciphered a new word or pieced together a sentence.
Two Giant Words: I’m Sorry.
Steve, on the other hand, has plenty of friends, but he wouldn’t bleed for any of them, because he wouldn’t trust them to bleed for him. In that way he’s just as alone as me.
Yet each day, he managed to unravel and straighten himself, disgusted and thankful. Wrecked, but somehow not torn into pieces.
The stars set fire to my eyes.
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.
Papa’s lungs were full of sky.
On Munich Street, Rudy noticed Deutscher walking along the footpath with some friends and felt the need to throw a rock at him. You might as well ask just what the hell he was thinking. The answer is probably nothing at all. He’d probably say that he was exercising his God-given right to stupidity.
I am stupid. And kind. Which makes the biggest idiot in the world.
There was no recovery from what had happened. That would take decades; it would take a long life.
She slept a lot and didn’t dream, and on most occasions she was sorry to wake up. Everything disappeared when she was asleep.
Now he turned on to the side street, making his way to number thirty-three, resisting the urge to smile, resisting the urge to sob or even imagine the safety that might be awaiting him. He reminded himself that this was no time for hope.
Usually it was like spillage- cold and heavy, slippery and gray- but once in a while some stars had the nerve to rise and float, if only for a few minutes.
No one’s urine smells as good as your own.
Hals und Beinbruch, Saukerl.
Max,” she said. He turned and briefly closed his eyes as the girl continued. “‘There was once a strange, small man,‘” she said. Her arms were loose but her hands were fists at her side. “But there was a word shaker, too.