The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, 550 pages
"Just don't ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me."
"If you feel like it, come with me. I will tell you a story. I'll show you something."
"Somehow, though, and I'm sure you've met people like this, he was able to appear as merely part of the background, even if he was standing at the front of the line. He was always just there. Not noticeable. Not important or particularly valuable."
"Trust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the brute strength of the man's gentleness, his thereness."
"The only thing worse than a boy who hates you, a boy who loves you."
"We will not give up. We will not rest. We will be victorious. Our time has come."
"He was the crazy one who had painted himself black and defeated the world. She was the book thief without the words."
"Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness."
"It's hard not to like a man who not only notices the colors, but speaks them."
"It's much easier, she realized, to be on the verge of something than to actually be it."
"Whispering adults hardly inspired confidence."
"I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that's where they begin. Their skill is their capacity to escalate."
"It's very rare, don't you think, for a statue to appear before its subject has become famous."
"Even death has a heart."
"It was a Monday, and they walked on a tightrope to the sun."
"Cuts had opened up and a series of wounds were rising to the surface of her skin. All from the words."
"It was quite fitting that the entire town was sleeping when the dream carrier was born..."
"Can a person steal happiness? Or is it just another internal, infernal human trick?"
"[T]he stars set fire to my eyes."
"She knew how powerless a person could be without words."
"There were people everywhere on the city street, but the stranger could not have been more alone if it were empty."
"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."
"[B]ut there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing."