The Book Thief: 10th Anniversary Edition
Page: 106, Location: 1613
Note: So far the story is going good. The writing are just.like flowing rivers of words. elegant yet fresh.. Liesel is also growin up . The relationship between liesel and papa is very beautiful. She had just stolen a book.from a.burning heap someone was watching .Lets see what happen next .
THE STRUGGLER, CONTINUED
Page: 135, Location: 2068-2069
Note: And the saga continues .. liesel been going to mayor house for reading . i think a new character is also.coming. beautiful. just beautiful strings of words. tge time is summer 1940
Yes, often, I am reminded of her, and in one of my vast array of pockets, I have kept her story to retell. It is one of the small legion I carry, each one extraordinary in its own right. Each one an attempt— an immense leap of an attempt—to prove to me that you, and your human existence, are worth it.
Page: 14, Location: 207-209
For Liesel, it was a ride in a car. She’d never been in one before. There was the constant rise and fall of her stomach, and the futile hopes that they’d lose their way or change their minds. Among it all, her thoughts couldn’t help turning toward her mother, back at the Bahnhof, waiting to leave again. Shivering. Bundled up in that useless coat. She’d be eating her nails, waiting for the train. The platform would be long and uncomfortable—a slice of cold cement. Would she keep an eye out for the approximate burial site of her son on the return trip? Or would sleep be too heavy?
Page: 21, Location: 314-319
The day was gray, the color of Europe.
Page: 21, Location: 320-320
You didn’t really want brown eyes in Germany around that time.
Page: 24, Location: 363-363
You didn’t really want brown eyes in Germany around that time. Perhaps she received them from her father, but she had no way of knowing, as she couldn’t remember him. There was really only one thing she knew about her father. It was a label she did not understand. A STRANGE WORD Kommunist
Page: 24, Location: 363-365
The girl knew from the outset that Hans Hubermann would always appear midscream, and he would not leave. A DEFINITION NOT FOUND IN THE DICTIONARY Not leaving: an act of trust and love, often deciphered by children
Page: 29, Location: 438-440
she had no idea what any of it was saying. The point is, it didn’t really matter what that book was about. It was what it meant that was more important. THE BOOK’S MEANING 1. The last time she saw her brother. 2. The last time she saw her mother.
Page: 30, Location: 460-463
One thing I’ve noticed about the Germans: They seem very fond of pigs.
Page: 37, Location: 554-555
He was the crazy one who had painted himself black and defeated the world. She was the book thief without the words.
Page: 69, Location: 1052-1053
it triggered the crux of what was to come. It would provide her with a venue for continued book thievery. It would inspire Hans Hubermann to come up with a plan to help the Jewish fist fighter. And it would show me, once again, that one opportunity leads directly to another, just as risk leads to more risk, life to more life, and death to more death. In a way, it was destiny.
Page: 70, Location: 1066-1069
You see, people may tell you that Nazi Germany was built on anti-Semitism, a somewhat overzealous leader, and a nation of hate-fed bigots, but it would all have come to nothing had the Germans not loved one particular activity: To burn.
Page: 70, Location: 1069-1071
There were not many people who could say that their education had been paid for with cigarettes.
Page: 76, Location: 1163-1163
Where was she? What had they done to her? And once and for all, who, in actual fact, were they?
Page: 82, Location: 1254-1256
Speeches would be made. A fire would be lit. A book would be stolen.
Page: 92, Location: 1409-1410
A SMALL ADDITION The word communist + a large bonfire + a collection of dead letters + the suffering of her mother + the death of her brother = the Führer
Page: 98, Location: 1502-1504
A REALIZATION A statue of the book thief stood in the courtyard. . . . It’s very rare, don’t you think, for a statue to appear before its subject has become famous.
Page: 104, Location: 1588-1590
PART THREE
Page: 106, Location: 1612-1613
Papa studied the title, probably wondering exactly what kind of threat this book posed to the hearts and minds of the German people.
Page: 107, Location: 1631-1632
Eleven-year-old paranoia was powerful. Eleven-year-old relief was euphoric.
Page: 113, Location: 1731-1732
The mayor’s wife was just one of a worldwide brigade. You have seen her before, I’m certain. In your stories, your poems, the screens you like to watch. They’re everywhere, so why not here? Why not on a shapely hill in a small German town? It’s as good a place to suffer as any.
Page: 125, Location: 1915-1917
A SMALL TRIBUTE TO ARTHUR BERG, A STILL-LIVING MAN The Cologne sky was yellow and rotting, flaking at the edges. He sat propped against a wall with a child in his arms. His sister. When she stopped breathing, he stayed with her, and I could sense he would hold her for hours. There were two stolen apples in his pocket.
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The juggling comes to an end now, but the struggling does not.
Page: 145, Location: 2214-2215
If they killed him tonight, at least he would die alive.
Page: 145, Location: 2216-2217
(German children were on the lookout for stray coins. German Jews kept watch for possible capture.)
Page: 146, Location: 2226-2227
PART FOUR the standover man featuring:the accordionist—a promise keeper—a good girl—a jewish fist fighter—the wrath of rosa—a lecture—a sleeper—the swapping of nightmares—and some pages from the basement
Page: 147, Location: 2243-2246
Hans Hubermann’s story was a little like that. When I found it within the book thief’s words, I realized that we passed each other once in a while during that period, though neither of us scheduled a meeting. Personally, I had a lot of work to do. As for Hans, I think he was doing his best to avoid me.
Page: 148, Location: 2259-2261
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’re running at me.
Page: 148, Location: 2266-2268
Max disagreed. “Yes we could. You can’t marry a Jew, but there’s no law against fighting one.” Walter smiled. “There’s probably a law rewarding it—as long as you win.”
Page: 164, Location: 2504-2506
When Max heard the news, his body felt like it was being screwed up into a ball, like a page littered with mistakes. Like garbage.
Page: 166, Location: 2539-2540
Living was living. The price was guilt and shame.
Page: 179, Location: 2731-2732
Life had altered in the wildest possible way, but it was imperative that they act as if nothing at all had happened. Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day. That was the business of hiding a Jew. As days turned into weeks, there was now, if nothing else, a beleaguered acceptance of what had transpired—all the result of war, a promise keeper, and one piano accordion. Also, in the space of just over half a year, the Hubermanns had lost a son and gained a replacement of epically dangerous proportions. What shocked
Page: 181, Location: 2767-2773
As time progressed, a clear distinction developed between two very different worlds—the world inside 33 Himmel Street, and the one that resided and turned outside it. The trick was to keep them apart.
Page: 191, Location: 2921-2923
Sleepy air seemed to have followed her. The scrawled words of practice stood magnificently on the wall by the stairs, jagged and childlike and sweet. They looked on as both the hidden Jew and the girl slept, hand to shoulder. They breathed. German and Jewish lungs.
Page: 195, Location: 2987-2990
I don’t have much interest in building mystery. Mystery bores me. It chores me. I know what happens and so do you. It’s the machinations that wheel us there that aggravate, perplex, interest, and astound me.
Page: 197, Location: 3013-3015
but in late October 1941, it became official. That night, Liesel Meminger truly became the book thief.
Page: 243, Location: 3719-3719
AN ABRIDGED ROLL CALL FOR 1942 1. The desperate Jews—their spirits in my lap as we sat on the roof, next to the steaming chimneys. 2. The Russian soldiers—taking only small amounts of ammunition, relying on the fallen for the rest of it. 3. The soaked bodies of a French coast— beached on the shingle and sand.
Page: 255, Location: 3905-3909
CHRISTMAS GREETINGS FROM MAX VANDENBURG “Often I wish this would all be over, Liesel, but then somehow you do something like walk down the basement steps with a snowman in your hands.”
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He was the second snowman to be melting away before her eyes, only this one was different. It was a paradox. The colder he became, the more he melted.
Page: 262, Location: 4008-4009
There was no denying it as the three of them sat at the kitchen table with their extra bread and extra soup or potatoes. They all thought it, but no one spoke.
Page: 275, Location: 4211-4212
Just past the rubble of Cologne, a group of kids collected empty fuel containers, dropped by their enemies. As usual, I collected humans. I was tired. And the year wasn’t even halfway over yet.
Page: 283, Location: 4326-4328
They rode home on rusty bikes. They rode home a couple of miles, from summer to autumn, and from a quiet night to the noisy breath of the bombing of Munich.
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I only know that all of those people would have sensed me that night, excluding the youngest of the children. I was the suggestion. I was the advice, my imagined feet walking into the kitchen and down the corridor.
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A NICE THOUGHT One was a book thief. The other stole the sky.
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When they arrived in full, the noise of their feet throbbed on top of the road. Their eyes were enormous in their starving skulls. And the dirt. The dirt was molded to them. Their legs staggered as they were pushed by soldiers’ hands—a few wayward steps of forced running before the slow return to a malnourished walk.
Page: 330, Location: 5056-5058
He made three separate formations that led to the same tower of dominoes in the middle. Together, they would watch everything that was so carefully planned collapse, and they would all smile at the beauty of destruction.
Page: 341, Location: 5226-5228
As the sergeant hosed the fire, the other two men hosed the sergeant, and just to make sure, Hubermann hosed all three of them.
Page: 365, Location: 5584-5584
Had he not lost his cigarettes to Hans Hubermann, he wouldn’t have despised him. If he hadn’t despised him, he might not have taken his place a few weeks later on a fairly innocuous road. One seat, two men, a short argument, and me. It kills me sometimes, how people die.
Page: 389, Location: 5961-5964
For some reason, dying men always ask questions they know the answer to. Perhaps it’s so they can die being right.
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THE LAST HUMAN STRANGER, PAGE 38There were people everywhere on the city street, but the stranger could not have been more alone if it were empty.
Page: 397, Location: 6078-6080
THE SPOKEN TRUTH OF RUDY STEINER “I guess I’m better at leaving things behind than stealing them.”
Page: 404, Location: 6189-6190
It’s probably fair to say that in all the years of Hitler’s reign, no person was able to serve the Führer as loyally as me. A human doesn’t have a heart like mine. The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in the right place at the right time. The consequence of this is that I’m always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both. Still, they have one thing I envy. Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.
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Again, I offer you a glimpse of the end. Perhaps it’s to soften the blow for later, or to better prepare myself for the telling. Either way, I must inform you that it was raining on Himmel Street when the world ended for Liesel Meminger. The sky was dripping. Like a tap that a child has tried its hardest to turn off but hasn’t quite managed. The first drops were cool. I felt them on my hands as I stood outside Frau Diller’s. Above me, I could hear them. Through the overcast sky, I looked up and saw the tin-can planes. I watched their stomachs open and the bombs drop casually out. They were off target, of course. They were often off target.
Page: 413, Location: 6321-6327
Years ago, when they’d raced on a muddy field, Rudy was a hastily assembled set of bones, with a jagged, rocky smile. In the trees this afternoon, he was a giver of bread and teddy bears. He was a triple Hitler Youth athletics champion. He was her best friend. And he was a month from his death. “Of course I told him about you,” Liesel said. She was saying goodbye and she didn’t even know it.
Page: 430, Location: 6584-6587
Make no mistake, the woman had a heart. She had a bigger one than people would think. There was a lot in it, stored up, high in miles of hidden shelving. Remember that she was the woman with the instrument strapped to her body in the long, moon-slit night. She was a Jew feeder without a question in the world on a man’s first night in Molching. And she was an arm reacher, deep into a mattress, to deliver a sketchbook to a teenage girl.
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There was much work to be done, and with a collection of other materials, The Book Thief was stepped on several times and eventually picked up without even a glance and thrown aboard a garbage truck. Just before the truck left, I climbed quickly up and took it in my hand. . . . It’s lucky I was there. Then again, who am I kidding? I’m in most places at least once, and in 1943, I was just about everywhere.
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