“It feels like spoken words, this bridge. I want it but fear it. God, I want so desperately to reach the other side - just like I want the words. I want my words to build bridges strong enough to walk on. I want them to tower over the world so I can stand up on them and walk to the other side.”

“I guess that’s the beauty of books. When they finish they don’t really finish.”

“I feel the fear, but I walk fast toward it.”

“Jesus, Mary …”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 the 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!Even when she tried to wipe the smile away with her forearm, she realized instantly that it was a pointless exercise. She could feel the eyes of the woman traveling her body, and when she looked at her, they had rested on her face.There was more silence than she ever thought possible. It extended like an elastic, dying to break. The girl broke it.“Can I?”The two words stood among acres and acres of vacant, wooden-floored land. The books were miles away.The woman nodded.Yes, you can”

“The question is, what colour will everything be at that moment when I come for you? What will the sky be saying?”

“When death tells a story yo really have to listen”

“Do you have to pay to be Jewish? Do you need a licence?”

“You don't always get what you wish for. Especially in Nazi Germany”

“The sky is blue today, Max, and there is a big long cloud, and it's stretched out, like a rope. At the end of it, the sun is like a yellow hole..." Max, at that moment, knew that only a child could have given him a weather report like that. On the wall, he painted a long, tightly knotted rope with a dripping yellow sun at the end of it, as if you could dive right into it. On the ropy cloud, he drew two figures-a thin girl and a withering Jew-and they were walking, arms balanced, toward that dripping sun.”

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

“We used to languish when we walked, or sidle down the street like dogs that have just done something wrong. Now Rube walks upright, because he's on the attack.”