The voices / 262 fragments

Markus Zusak

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▷ Play this voice Search within this voice ↗Place in time ↗time love truth friendship justice death life happiness

Archive entries

01Undated

The scribbled signature black, onto the blinding global white, onto the thick soupy red.

Markus Zusak / quote

02Undated

For two days I went about my business. I travelled the globe as always, handing souls to the conveyor belt of eternity.

Markus Zusak / quote

03Undated

Could she smell my breath? Could she hear my cursed circular heart beat revolving like the crime it is in my deathly chest?

Markus Zusak / quote

04Undated

And I can promise you something, because it was a thing I saw many years later - a vision in the book thief herself - that as she knelt next to Hans Hubermann, she watched him stand and play the accordion. He stood and strapped it on in the alps of broken houses and played the accordion with kindness silver eyes and even a cigarette slouched on his lips. The bellows breathed and the tall man played for Liesel Meminger one last time as the sky was slowly taken away from her.

Markus Zusak / quote

05Undated

Even now, I wonder how much of my life is convinced.

Markus Zusak / quote

06Undated

...there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing.

Markus Zusak / quote

07Undated

That's typically what writers do; we just sit around complaining most of the time. And the better things are going, the more they complain.

Markus Zusak / quote

08Undated

You should give it to Max, Liesel. See if you can leave it on the bedside table, like all the other things." Liesel watched him as if he'd gone insane. "How, though?" Lightly, he tapped her skull with his knuckles. "Memorize it. Then write it down for him.

Markus Zusak / quote

09Undated

For a moment, I debated whether I should tell someone about the words I'd started writing down, but I couldn't. In a way, I felt ashamed, even though my writing was the one thing that whispered okayness in my ear. I didn't speak it, to anyone.

Markus Zusak / quote

10Undated

She wanted none of those days to end, and it was always with disappointment that she watched the darkness stride forward.

Markus Zusak / quote

11Undated

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 / quote

12Undated

It makes me wonder, Do we spend most of our days trying to remember or forget things? Do we spend most of our time running towards or away from our lives? I don't know.

Markus Zusak / quote

13Undated

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 / quote

14Undated

My own eyes try to sleep, but they don't. They stay wide awake as time snarls forward and silence drops down, like measured thought.

Markus Zusak / quote

15Undated

Time will tell, I suppose, or at least, these pages will.

Markus Zusak / quote

16Undated

As always, she was carrying the washing. Rudy was carrying two buckets of cold water, or as he put it, two buckets of future ice.

Markus Zusak / quote

17Undated

Best friends one, and now we have almost nothing to say to each other. It was interesting, how he had joined those guys and I just stayed on my own. I didn't like it or dislike it. It was just funny that things had turned out that way.

Markus Zusak / quote

18Undated

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 / quote

19Undated

As always, one of her books was next to her.

Markus Zusak / quote

20Undated

My arms are killing me. I didn't know words could be so heavy.

Markus Zusak / quote

21Undated

She said it out loud, the words distributed into a room that was full of cold air and books. Books everywhere! Each wall was armed with overcrowded yet immaculate shelving. It was barely possible to see paintwork. There were all different styles and sizes of lettering on the spines of the black, the red, the gray, the every-colored books. It was one of the most beautiful things Liesel Meminger had ever seen.With wonder, she smiled.That such a room existed!

Markus Zusak / quote

22Undated

The point is, it didn’t really matter what the book was about. It was what it meant that was important.

Markus Zusak / quote

23Undated

How does it feel, anyway?"How does what feel?"When you take one of those books?"At that moment, she chose to keep still. If he wants an answer, he'd have to come back, and he did. "Well?" he asked, but again, it was the boy who replied, before Liesel could even open her mouth.It feels good, doesn't it? To steal something back.

Markus Zusak / quote

24Undated

The book thief has struck for the first time – the beginning of an illustrious career.

Markus Zusak / quote