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.
The soft-spoken words fell off the side of the bed, emptying to the floor like powder.
Certainly war meant dying, but it always shifted the ground beneath a person’s feet when it was someone who had once lived and breathed in close proximity.
He was hanging from one of the rafters in a laundry up near Frau Diller’s. Another human pendulum. Another clock, stopped.
Steam was rising weirdly from his clothes. His hangover was visible. It heaved itself to his shoulders and sat there like a bag of wet cement.
Insane or not, Rudy was always destined to be Liesel’s best friend. A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.
When life robs you, sometimes, you have to rob it back.
The juggling comes to an end now, but the struggling does not. I have Liesel Meminger in one hand, Max Vandenburg in the other. Soon I will clap them together. Just give me a few pages.
The word maybe was beginning to annoy me, because the only thing that was fixed was that maybe would be with me forever.
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.
There was once a strange small man but there was a word shaker too.
When I found it amongst the book thief’s words, I realised that we passed each other once in a while during that period, though neither of us scheduled a meeting. Personally, I had a lot of work to do. As for Hans, I think he was doing his best to avoid me.
The only sound I’ll hear after that will be my own breathing, and the sound of the smell, of my footsteps.
One seat, two men, a short argument, and me. It kills me sometimes, how people die.
You are going to die.
Marv glaubt an so etwas, und ich weiss, dass ich das nicht geringschaetzen sollte. Es ist, wie es ist.
White light lowered itself into a boxing ring and a crowd stood and murmured – that magical sound of many people talking all at once. How could every person there have so much to say at the same time?
Liesel was exercising the blatant right of every person who’s ever belonged to a family. It’s all very well for such a person to whine and moan and criticize other family members, but they won’t let anyone else do it. That’s when you get your back up and show loyalty.
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.