Top 500 Markus Zusak Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “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.”

— Markus Zusak

102. “No matter how many times she was told that she was loved, there was no recognition that the proof was in the abandonment.”

— Markus Zusak

103. “The Gunman is useless. I know it. He knows it. The whole bank knows it.”

— Markus Zusak

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

— Markus Zusak

105. “Humans have a talent for escalation. -Death.”

— Markus Zusak

106. “Competence was attractive.”

— Markus Zusak

107. “Have you ever noticed that idiots have a lot of friends? It’s just an observation.”

— Markus Zusak

108. “Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.”

— Markus Zusak

109. “He was waving. “Saukerl,” she laughed, and as she held up her hand, she knew completely that he was simultaneously calling her a Saumensch. I think that’s as close to love as eleven-year-olds can get.”

— Markus Zusak

110. “Amplified by the still of night, the book opened – a gust of wind.”

— Markus Zusak

111. “Only in today’s sick society can a man be persecuted for reading too many books.”

— Markus Zusak

112. “She kept watching the words.”

— Markus Zusak

113. “Two Giant Words: I’m Sorry.”

— Markus Zusak

114. “The conversation of bullets.”

— Markus Zusak

115. “The paper landed on the table, but the news was stapled to his chest. A tattoo.”

— Markus Zusak

116. “I try hard and aim big. People can hate or love my books but they can never accuse me of not trying.”

— Markus Zusak

117. “You are going to die.”

— Markus Zusak

118. “When Liesel left that day, she said something with great uneasiness. In translation, two giant words were struggled with, carried on her shoulder, and dropped as a bungling pair at Ilsa Hermann’s feet. They fell off sideways as the girl veered with them and could no longer sustain their weight. Together, they sat on the floor, large and loud and clumsy. Two giant words... I’m sorry.”

— Markus Zusak

119. “The yawn of a girl can be so beautiful it makes you cringe.”

— Markus Zusak

120. “If you ever write a book, I can only give you one piece of advice. Don’t let your parents get involved.”

— Markus Zusak

121. “I didn’t know words could be so heavy.”

— Markus Zusak

122. “I think to be writer you have to enjoy being alone. I was a loner as a teenager and was always drawn to characters in books and films who were at the fringes.”

— Markus Zusak

123. “To me the question is always this: if a ray of light came out of the sky and said, “Your next book will never be published – would you still write it?” If the answer is yes, the book is worth writing.”

— Markus Zusak

124. “When life robs you, sometimes, you have to rob it back.”

— Markus Zusak

125. “I see Death as the part of us that knows all the time that we’re going to die, reminding us to live properly.”

— Markus Zusak

126. “I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn’t already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race – that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.”

— Markus Zusak

127. “There were people of every stature, but amongst them, the poor were the most easily recognised. The impoverished always try to keep moving, as if relocating might help. They ignore the reality that a new version of the same old problem will be waiting at the end of the trip – the relative you cringe to kiss.”

— Markus Zusak

128. “An attribute of Rosa Hubermann, she was a good woman for a crisis.”

— Markus Zusak

129. “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

130. “Liesel’s blood had dried inside of her. It crumbled. She almost broke into pieces on the steps.”

— Markus Zusak

131. “It’s a lot easier, she realized, to be on the verge of something than to actually be it. This would still take time.”

— Markus Zusak

132. “She gathered the books like clouds and words poured down like rain.”

— Markus Zusak

133. “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.”

— Markus Zusak

134. “The human child – so much cannier at times than the stupefyingly ponderous adult.”

— Markus Zusak

135. “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.”

— Markus Zusak

136. “Five hundred souls. I carried them in my fingers, like suitcases. Or I’d throw them over my shoulder. It was only the the children I carried in my arms.”

— Markus Zusak

137. “Rosa Hubermann was sitting on the edge of the bed with her husband’s accordion tied to her chest. Her fingers hovered above the keys. She did not move. She didn’t ever appear to be breathing.”

— Markus Zusak

138. “You can do all manner of underhanded nice things when you have a caustic reputation.”

— Markus Zusak

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

— Markus Zusak

140. “A fighter can be a winner, but that doesn’t make a winner a fighter.”

— Markus Zusak

141. “Of course I told him about you,” Liesel said. She was saying goodbye and she didn’t even know it.”

— Markus Zusak

142. “The last time I saw her was red. The sky was like soup, boiling and stirring. In some places, it was burned. There were black crumbs, and pepper, streaked across the redness.”

— Markus Zusak

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

— Markus Zusak

144. “I have to say that although it broke my heart, I was, and still am, glad I was there.”

— Markus Zusak

145. “I realize that nothing belongs to her anymore and she belongs to everything.”

— Markus Zusak

146. “Whoever named Himmel Street certainly had a healthy sense of irony. Not that is was a living hell. It wasn’t. But is sure as hell wasn’t heaven, either.”

— Markus Zusak

147. “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.”

— Markus Zusak

148. “Rudy Steiner was scared of the book theif’s kiss. He must have longed for it so much. He must have longed for it so much. he must have loved her so incredibly hard. So hard that he would never ask for her lips again and would go to his grave without them.”

— Markus Zusak

149. “Somewhere in all the snow, she could see her broken heart, in two pieces.”

— Markus Zusak

150. “The impoverished always try to keep moving, as if relocating might help. They ignore the reality that a new version of the same old problem will be waiting at the end of the trip- the relative you cringe to kiss.”

— Markus Zusak