There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Maya Angelou

It’s the leftover humans.
The survivors.
They’re the ones I can’t stand to look at, although on many occasions I still fail. I deliberately seek out the colors to keep my mind off them, but now and then, I witness the ones who are left behind, crumbling among the jigsaw puzzle of realization, despair, and surprise. They have punctured hearts. They have beaten lungs.

--Yet another brilliant quote from The Book Thief

“I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.”

The Book Thief-Markus Zusak

Isn't this how writers feel every day of our lives?

My life is being devoured by theatre. And I like it.

You mean you're willin' to beat the shit outta some guy just 'cause you think he's boring?

You're goddamn right. Self defense, pal.

-Conversations with my Father

He steps on Death's heart...

“And I’m not too great at that sort of comforting thing, especially when my hands are cold and the bed is warm. I carried him softly through the broken street, with one salty eye and a heavy, deathly heart. With him, I tried a little harder. I watched the contents of his soul for a moment and saw a black-painted boy calling the name Jesse Owens as he ran through an imaginary tape. I saw him hip-deep in some icy water, chasing a book, and I saw a boy lying in bed, imagining how a kiss would taste from his glorious next-door neighbor. He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It’s his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.”

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

I don’t wish to touch hearts. I don’t even want to affect minds very much. What I really want to produce is that little sob in the spine of the artist-reader.

--Vladimir Nabokov

The Book Thief-Markus Zusak

’Don’t punish yourself,’ she heard her say again, but there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing.



*****
You will be seeing a lot from this book in the coming posts. A Holocaust novel narrated by Death, it was the first book in a long time I've really gotten lost in.