Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

"I am in all truthfulness attempting to be cheerful about this whole topic, though most people find themselves hindered in believing me, no matter my protestations. Please, trust me. I most definitely can be cheerful. I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that's only the A's. Just don't ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me."

"Hair the color of lemons,'" Rudy read. His fingers touched the words. "You told him about me"At first, Liesel could not talk. Perhaps it was the sudden bumpiness of love she felt for him. Or had she always loved him? It's likely. Restricted as she was from speaking, she wanted him to kiss her. She wanted him to drag her hand across and pull her over. It didn't matter where. Her mouth, her neck, her cheek. Her skin was empty for it, waiting. Years ago, when they'd raced on a muddy field, Rudy was a hastily assembled set of bones, with a jagged, rocky smile. In the trees this afternoon, he was a giver of bread and teddy bears. He was a triple Hitler Youth athletics champion. He was her best friend. And he was a month from his death. Of course I told him about you," Liesel said."

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

"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 one day. Liesel. His soul whispered it as I carried him. But there was no Liesel in that house. Not for me, anyway."

"You should know it yourself- a young man is still a boy, and a boy sometimes has the right to be stubborn."

"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."

"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 the woman wept. The different notes handled her eyes. Such sadness."

"...to swear with a ferocity that can only be described as a talent."

"The impoverished always try to keep moving, as if relocating might help."

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

"It would then be brought abruptly to an end, for the brightness had shown suffering the way."

"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."

"Keep going. You're a mess and you're happy."

"When I picked him up originally, the boy's spirit was soft and cold, like ice-cream. He started melting in my arms. Then warming up completely. Healing."

"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. Please - try not to look away."

"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."

"It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on, coughing and searching, and finding."

"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."

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

"DEFINITION NOT FOUND IN THE DICTIONARY Not leaving: an act of trust and love, often deciphered by children"