Top 500 Markus Zusak Quotes (2024 Update)
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251. “Although something inside told her that this was a crime – after all, her three books were the most precious items she owned – she was compelled to see the thing lit. She couldn’t help it. I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that’s where they begin. Their great skill is their capacity to escalate.”

— Markus Zusak

252. “I see their ugly and their beauty, and wonder how the same thing can be both.”

— Markus Zusak

253. “People observe the colors of a day only at its beginnings and ends, but to me it’s quite clear that a day merges through a multitude of shades and intonations with each passing moment.”

— Markus Zusak

254. “A human doesn’t have a heart like mine. The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in the right place at the right time. 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.”

— Markus Zusak

255. “People have defining moments, i suppose, especially when they’re children.”

— Markus Zusak

256. “Handfuls of frosty water can make almost anyone smile, but it cannot make them forget.”

— Markus Zusak

257. “Clearly, I see it. I was just about to leave when I found her kneeling there. A mountain range of rubble was written, designed, erected around her. She was clucthing at a book.”

— Markus Zusak

258. “A statue of the book thief stood in the courtyard... it’s very rare, don’t you think, for a statue to appear before it’s subject has become famous?”

— Markus Zusak

259. “Sometimes she sat against the wall, longing for the warm finger of paint to wander just once more down the side of her nose, or to watch the sandpaper texture of her papa’s hands. If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter and bread with only the scent of jam spread out on top of it. It was the best time of her life.”

— Markus Zusak

260. “And then there’s the sickness I feel from looking at legs I can’t touch, or at lips that don’t smile at me. Or hips that don’t reach for me. And hearts that don’t beat for me.”

— Markus Zusak

261. “At first, she could not talk. Perhaps it was the sudden bumpiness of love she felt for him. Or had she always loved him?”

— Markus Zusak

262. “Never leave anything out to dry as the sun comes up for the new year.”

— Markus Zusak

263. “Grimly, she realized that clocks don’t make a sound that even remotely resembles ticking, tocking. It was more the sound of a hammer, upside down, hacking methodically at the earth. It was the sound of a grave.”

— Markus Zusak

264. “I did it on purpose.”

— Markus Zusak

265. “It was a Sunday, an arsonist sunrise.”

— Markus Zusak

266. “It was a style not of perfection, but warmth. Even mistakes had a good feeling about them.”

— Markus Zusak

267. “When their bodies had finished scouring for gaps in the door, their souls rose up. When their fingernails had scratched at the wood and in some cases were nailed into it by the sheer force of desperation, their spirits came toward me, into my arms, and we climbed out of those shower facilities, onto the roof and up, into eternity’s certain breadth. They just kept feeding me. Minute after minute. Shower after shower.”

— Markus Zusak

268. “He walked from one end of the basement to the other, the lamplight magnifying his shadow. It turned him into a giant on the wall, walking back and forth. When he stopped pacing, his shadow loomed behind him, watching. Someone was always watching.”

— Markus Zusak

269. “Words are life, Liesel.”

— Markus Zusak

270. “I watch the beauty for as long as I can, then turn and face the rest of it.”

— Markus Zusak

271. “It’s funny, don’t you think, how time seems to do a lot of things? It flies, it tells, and worst of all, it runs out.”

— Markus Zusak

272. “Her teeth were like a soccer crowd, crammed in.”

— Markus Zusak

273. “It’s the story of one of those perpetual survivors- an expert at being left behind.”

— Markus Zusak

274. “How do you tell if something’s alive? You check for breathing.”

— Markus Zusak

275. “Mistakes, mistakes, it’s all I seem capable of at times.”

— Markus Zusak

276. “It’s also worthy of mention that every pattern has at least one small bias, and one day it will tip itself over or fall from one page to another.”

— Markus Zusak

277. “It’s not so much that the old friend is a better friend. It’s just that you know the person better, and you know they don’t really care if you’re acting like a poor, grovelling idiot. They know you would do the same for them.”

— Markus Zusak

278. “They’d been standing like that for thirty seconds of forever.”

— Markus Zusak

279. “Do we spend most of our days trying to remember or to forget? Do we spend most of our time running towards or away from our lives?”

— Markus Zusak

280. “It travelled and wondered, but it disclosed no answers. Not yet.”

— Markus Zusak

281. “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.”

— Markus Zusak

282. “It was a nice dream, and an impossible one.”

— Markus Zusak

283. “The flyscreen door slammed behind me. My feet dragged. I reached each arm into the jacket. Warm sleeves. Crumpled collar. Hands in pockets. Okay. I walked.”

— Markus Zusak

284. “In a way, I wish I could be like that. You’d never worry or care about anything that really mattered. You’d be happy, in the same pitiful way someone like our friend Ritchie is. Nothing affects you, and you affect nothing.”

— Markus Zusak

285. “I look at her wish we could go inside and make love on the couch. Dive inside each other. Take each other. Make each other. Nothing happens, though.”

— Markus Zusak

286. “She was a girl. In Nazi Germany. How fitting that she was discovering the power of words.”

— Markus Zusak

287. “Well, have you even tried again? You can’t just sit around waiting for the new world to take it with you. You have to go out and be part of it – despite your past mistakes.”

— Markus Zusak

288. “It was a place nobody wanted to stay and look at, but almost everyone did. Shaped like a long, broken arm, the road contained several houses with lacerated windows and bruised walls. The Star of David was painted on their doors. Those houses were almost like lepers. At the very least, they were infected sores on the injured German terrain.”

— Markus Zusak

289. “The dilemma, of course, is that such people save their most important words for after, when the surrounding humans are unlucky enough to find them.”

— Markus Zusak

290. “If you feel like it, come with me. I will tell you a story. I’ll show you something.”

— Markus Zusak

291. “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?”

— Markus Zusak

292. “I had many boxing matches with my brother in the backyard when we were younger, and I guess while other people abhor boxing for its brutality, I also have to admire anyone who climbs into the ring to face up to what could be the ultimate defeat.”

— Markus Zusak

293. “I however, try to enjoy every color I see the whole spectrum. A billion or so flavors, none of them quite the same.”

— Markus Zusak

294. “Not a beauty queen. Not one of those. You know the ones. She was real.”

— Markus Zusak

295. “Crossword?” he would ask.”

— Markus Zusak

296. “One thing I’ve noticed about the Germans: They seem very fond of pigs.”

— Markus Zusak

297. “Stealing it, in a sick kind of sense, was like earning it.”

— Markus Zusak

298. “When she faced the noise, she found the mayor’s wife in a brand-new bathrobe and slippers. On the breast pocket of the robe sat an embroidered swastika. Propaganda even reached the bathroom.”

— Markus Zusak

299. “The pages and the words are my world, spread out before your eyes and for your hand to touch. Vaguely, I can see you face looking down into me, as I look back. Do you see my eyes?”

— Markus Zusak

300. “God never says anything. You think you’re the only one he never answers?”

— Markus Zusak