Markus Zusak

Rudy handed it back. "Speaking of which, I think we're both slightly in for it when we get home. You especially.""Why me?""You know- your mama.""What about her?" Liesel was exercising the blatant right of every person who's ever belonged to a family. It's all very well for such a person to whine and moan and criticize other family members, but they won't let anyone else do it. That's when you get your back up and show loyalty.

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.

If someone wanted to be a runner, you don't tell them to think about running, you tell them to run. And the same simple idea applies to writing, I hope.

The dog next-door had settled down, and the neighbourhood seemed stunned by this event occurring in our backyard. It was like it could sense it. It could sense some form of tragedy and helplessness being played out, and to tell you the truth, it all surprised me. I was so used to things just going on, oblivious and ignorant to all feeling.

An eleven-year-old girl is many things, but she is not stupid.

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

I don't leave a note.There's nothing else to do. At first, I'd wanted to write Merry Christmas on the box somewhere, but I decide against it. This isn't about words.It's about glowing lights and small things that are big.

It was the beginning of the greatest Christmas ever. Little food. No presents. But there was a snowman in their basement.

The color of defeat chokes her pupils, even though her nod and smile and uncomfortable sitting motion on the couch indicate that she is not finished yet. She will carry on, like all of us. Smile stubborn. Smile with instinct, then lick your wounds in the darkest of corners. Trace the scars back to your own fingers and remember them.

That paper--it sits there, open at the employment section. It sits there like a war, and each small advertisement is another trench for a person to dive into. To hope and fight in.

Why do they have windows? Is it to let a glimpse of the world in? Or for us to see out? Our own place is small perhaps, but when your old man is eaten up by his own shadow, you realize maybe that in every house, something so savage and sad and brilliant is standing up, without the world even seeing it. Maybe that's what these pages of words are about. Bringing the world to the window.

... because a fight's worth nothing if you know from the start that you're going to win it. It's the ones in between that test you. They're the ones that bring questions with them.

And you're Cameron Wolfe. That' gotta start meaning somethin' boy. That's gotta start churnin' inside us, making us wanna be someone for those names, and not just another couple of guys who amounted to nothin' but what people said we would. No way. We're getting' out of that. We have to. We're gonna crawl and moan and fight and bite and bark at anything that gets in our way or tries to hunt us down and shoot us. All right?

If nothing else, they died fast and they were warm. The boy from the plane, I thought. The one with the teddy bear. Where was Rudy's confort? Where was someone to alleviate this robbery of his life? Who was there to soothe him as life's rug was snatched from under his sleeping feet?

If you can't imagine it, think clumsy silence. Think bits and pieces of floating despair. And drowning in a train.

In years to come, he would be a giver of bread, not a stealer - proof again of the contradictory human being. So much good, so much evil. Just add water.

You can't eat books, sweetheart.

But then, is there cowardice in the acknowledgment of fear? Is there cowardice in being glad that you lived?