Quote

As she watched all of this, Liesel was certain that these were the poorest souls alive. That's what she wrote about them . . . Some looked appealingly at those who had come to observe their humiliation, this prelude to their deaths. Others pleaded for someone, anyone to step forward and catch them in their arms. No one did.

Markus Zusak

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Markus Zusak
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: January 1
Novelist
Writer
Sydney
NSW
Come
Arms
Observe
Steps
Watched
Alive
Catch
Anyone
Souls
Pleaded
Others
Wrote
Prelude
Someone
Forward
Deaths
Certain
Looked
Poorest
Soul
Step
Humiliation

More quotes by Markus Zusak

Image
How do you tell if something's alive? You check for breathing.
Markus Zusak
Image
Trust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the brute strength of the man's gentleness, his thereness. (p.36)
Markus Zusak
Image
It's about glowing lights and small things that are big.
Markus Zusak
Image
When death captures me, the boy vowed, he will feel my fist in his face. (31.26)
Markus Zusak
Image
I only know that all of those people would have sensed me that night, excluding the youngest of the children. I was the suggestion. I was the advice, my imagined feet walking into the kitchen and down the corridor.
Markus Zusak
Image
For a moment, I panic. It's that feeling of falling when you know without question, that you've lost control of your car, or made a mistake that's beyond repair. 'What do I do now?' I ask desperately. 'Tell me! What do I do now?' He remains calm. He looks at me closely and says, 'Keep living, Ed... It's only the pages that stop here.
Markus Zusak
Image
I love and hate this place because it is full of words.
Markus Zusak
Image
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.
Markus Zusak
Image
I watch the beauty for as long as I can, then turn and face the rest of it.
Markus Zusak
Image
They were glued down, every last one of them. A packet of souls. Was it fate?Misfortune?Is that what glued them down like that?Of course not.Let's not be stupid.It probably had more to do with the hurled bombs, thrown down by humans hiding in the clouds.
Markus Zusak
Image
The bittersweetness of uncertainty: To win or to lose.
Markus Zusak
Image
When I was growing up, I wanted to be a house painter like my father, but I was always screwing up when I went to work with him. I had a talent for knocking over paint and painting myself into corners. I also realized fairly quickly that painting bored me.
Markus Zusak
Image
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.
Markus Zusak
Image
She wanted none of those days to end, and it was always with disappointment that she watched the darkness stride forward.
Markus Zusak
Image
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 hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she would wring them out like rain.
Markus Zusak
Image
She looks at the swings, and I can see she’s imagining what they’d look like if the kids weren’t there. The guilt of this holds her down momentarily. It appears to be there constantly. Never far away, despite her love for them. I realize that nothing belongs to her anymore and she belongs to everything.
Markus Zusak
Image
You want to know what I truly look like? I'll help you out. Find yourself a mirror while I continue.
Markus Zusak
Image
You can do anything when it's not real.
Markus Zusak
Image
You see, to me, for just a moment, despite all of the colors that touch and grapple with what I see in this world, I will often catch an eclipse when a human dies. I've seen millions of them. I've seen more eclipses than I care to remember
Markus Zusak
Image
The scrawled words of practice stood magnificently on the wall by the stairs, jagged and childlike and sweet. They looked on as both the hidden Jew and the girl slept, hand to shoulder. They breathed. German and Jewish lungs.
Markus Zusak