Don't be afraid to fail. I fail every day. I failed thousands of times writing The Book Thief, and that book now means everything to me. I had many doubts and fears about that book, but some of what I feel are the best ideas in it came to me when I was working away for apparently no result.

Markus Zusak

Categorized in : Book Mean Writing

Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.

Markus Zusak

misery

I have to say that although it broke my heart, I was, and still am, glad I was there.

Markus Zusak

broke glad heart

Please, trust me, I most definitely can be cheerful. I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that's only the A's. Just don't ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me.

Markus Zusak

cheerful trust-me nice

I guess that’s the beauty of books. When they finish they don’t really finish.

Markus Zusak

writing book

The night is alive with stars, and when I lie down and look up, I get lost up there. I feel like I’m falling, but upward, into the abyss of sky above me.

Markus Zusak

stars lying fall

For a moment, I panic. It's that feeling of falling when you know without question, that you've lost control of your car, or made a mistake that's beyond repair. 'What do I do now?' I ask desperately. 'Tell me! What do I do now?' He remains calm. He looks at me closely and says, 'Keep living, Ed... It's only the pages that stop here.

Markus Zusak

car mistake fall

Maybe everyone can live beyond what they're capable of.

Markus Zusak

inspiring philosophy life

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 and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.

Markus Zusak

thieves race book

It's funny, don't you think, how time seems to do a lot of things? It flies, it tells, and worst of all, it runs out.

Markus Zusak

time running thinking

Maybe one morning I’ll wake up and step outside of myself to look back at the old me lying dead among the sheets.

Markus Zusak

morning lying looks

As we walk back, it feels like the city is engulfing us. Adrenalin still pours through our veins. Sparks flow through to our fingers. We've still been running in the mornings, but the city's different then. It's filled with hope and with bristles of winter sunshine. In the evening, it's like it dies, waiting to be born again the next morning.

Markus Zusak

sunshine running morning

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

Markus Zusak

power-of-words power made

...there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing.

Markus Zusak

punishment pain writing

...one opportunity leads directly to another, just as risk leads to more risk, life to more life, and death to more death.

Markus Zusak

life-and-death risk opportunity

Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes.

Markus Zusak

papa father thinking

Summer came. For the book thief, everything was going nicely. For me, the sky was the color of Jews. When their bodies had finished scouring for gaps in the door, their souls rose up. When their fingernails had scratched at the wood and in some cases were nailed into it by the sheer force of desperation, their spirits came toward me, into my arms, and we climbed out of those shower facilities, onto the roof and up, into eternity's certain breadth. They just kept feeding me. Minute after minute. Shower after shower.

Markus Zusak

summer doors book

Just be patient, she told herself, and with the mounting pages, the strength of her writing fist grew.

Markus Zusak

pages fists writing

Make no mistake, the woman had a heart. She had a bigger one that 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.

Markus Zusak

moon mistake heart

A happening was looming. It was out there somewhere beyond the regular enclosed life that I had been living. It was out there, not waiting, but existing. Being. Perhaps it was only slightly wondering if I would come to it.

Markus Zusak

looming waiting wonder

You'll have days of complete lack of faith in your abilities. But you have to keep coming back. That's when you know you're a writer - when you take the failures and appear at the desk again, over and over again.

Markus Zusak

desks coming-back writing