The sun stirs the earth. Around and
around, it stirs us, like a stew.
– The Book Thief (by Markus Zusak, 2005), Part Ten, in the Chapter “Ilsa Hermann’s Little Black Book”, page 519.
“Don’t punish yourself,” she heard her say, but there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing.
—pages 524-5.
I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn’t already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating an underestimating the human race—that rarely ever do I simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and it’s words and stories so damning and so brilliant.
—page 550