The voices / 262 fragments

Markus Zusak

Dates not recorded

Name supplied in the contributor-provided quotation collection. Basic attribution label; identity, lifetime and quotation authenticity have not been independently verified.

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Archive entries

01Undated

The only thing worse than a boy who hates you: a boy that loves you.

Markus Zusak / quote

02Undated

He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It’s his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.

Markus Zusak / quote

03Undated

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

Markus Zusak / quote

04Undated

She leaned down and looked at his lifeless face and Leisel kissed her best friend, Rudy Steiner, soft and true on his lips. He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist's suit collection. She kissed him long and soft, and when she pulled herself away, she touched his mouth with her fingers...She did not say goodbye. She was incapable, and after a few more minutes at his side, she was able to tear herself from the ground. It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on...

Markus Zusak / quote

05Undated

If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.

Markus Zusak / quote

06Undated

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 / quote

07Undated

Sometimes people are beautiful.Not in looks.Not in what they say.Just in what they are.

Markus Zusak / quote

08Undated

Even death has a heart.

Markus Zusak / quote

09Undated

Maybe everyone can live beyond what they're capable of.

Markus Zusak / quote

10Undated

I want words at my funeral. But I guess that means you need life in your life.

Markus Zusak / quote

11Undated

Can a person steal happiness? Or is just another internal, infernal human trick?

Markus Zusak / quote

12Undated

Why can’t the world hear? I ask myself. Within a few moments I ask it many times. Because it doesn’t care, I finally answer, and I know I’m right. It’s like I’ve been chosen. But chosen for what? I ask.

Markus Zusak / quote

13Undated

There are so many moments to remember and sometimes I think that maybe we're not really people at all. Maybe moments are what we are.... Sometimes I just survive. But sometimes I stand on the rooftop of my existence, arms stretched out, begging for more.

Markus Zusak / quote

14Undated

So much good, so much evil. Just add water.

Markus Zusak / quote

15Undated

Usually we walk around constantly believing ourselves. "I'm okay" we say. "I'm alright". But sometimes the truth arrives on you and you can't get it off. That's when you realize that sometimes it isn't even an answer--it's a question. Even now, I wonder how much of my life is convinced.

Markus Zusak / quote

16Undated

Very quickly, very suddenly, words fell through my mind. They landed on the floor of my thoughts, and in there, down there, I started to pick the words up. They were excerpts of truth gathered from inside me.

Markus Zusak / quote

17Undated

I'd seen glimpses of a different me. It was a different me because in those increments of time I thought I actually became a winner.The truth, however, is painful.It was a truth that told me with a scratching internal brutality that I was me, and that winning wan't natural for me. It had to be fought for, in the echoes and trodden footprints of my mind. In a way, I had to scavenge for moments of alrightness.

Markus Zusak / quote

18Undated

I stood there and stared, into the sky and at the city around me. I stood, hands at my side, and I saw what had happened to me and who I was and the way things would always be for me. Truth. There was no more wishing, or wondering. I knew who I was, and what I would always do. I believed it, as my teeth touched and my eyes were overrun.

Markus Zusak / quote

19Undated

***A KEY WORD*** Imagined

Markus Zusak / quote

20Undated

As we walk back, it feels like the city is engulfing us. Adrenalin still pours through our veins. Sparks flow through to our fingers. We've still been running in the mornings, but the city's different then. It's filled with hope and with bristles of winter sunshine. In the evening, it's like it dies, waiting to be born again the next morning.

Markus Zusak / quote

21Undated

It kills me sometimes, how people die.

Markus Zusak / quote

22Undated

A small but noteworthy note. I've seen so many young men over the years who think they're running at other young men. They are not. They are running at me.

Markus Zusak / quote

23Undated

His soul sat up. It met me. Those kinds of souls always do - the best ones. The ones who rise up and say "I know who you are and I am ready. Not that I want to go, of course, but I will come." Those souls are always light because more of them have been put out. More of them have already found their way to other places.

Markus Zusak / quote

24Undated

I carried [Rudy] softly through the broken street...with him I tried a little harder [at comforting]. I watched the contents of his soul for a moment and saw a black-painted boy calling the name Jesse Owens as he ran through an imaginary tape. I saw him hip-deep in some icy water, chasing a book, and I saw a boy lying in bed, imagining how a kiss would taste from his glorious next-door neighbor. He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It's his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.

Markus Zusak / quote