The Book Thief Death Quotes

This is the fear-filled scene where Max hides from a Nazi who's come to measure the Hubermanns' basement to see if it's deep enough for a bomb shelter. We aren't sure how he plans to use the scissors, but the options are pretty apparent. What do you think?

Hans' punishment for giving a Jewish man bread is being forced to join the army. But, he isn't put on the battlefield. Rather, he's given the job of cleaning up wreckage and dead bodies after air raids.

We come to understand that there is terrible fighting going on in Stalingrad, Russia, in large part through the character of Michael Holtzapfel, who comes home to break the news of his brother's death. He's lost three fingers in Stalingrad, but can't bear to be alive when his brother is dead.

Even though we hear about this moment from the beginning of the book, the bombing of Himmel Street is still a huge shock when it happens. It's hard to take the fact that these characters we've grown so fond of have all died.

Death presents dying as a unifier, the one thing that ties all humans together.

Death won't take you before you're body is dead. No matter what you did or didn't do in life, this Death will treat you just like he does everybody else.

See. Death is saying this to all of us. He doesn't discriminate. His vision of the moment after Death is rather comforting. But, do you think it's plausible? Why or why not?

This is an important aspect of Zusak's Death. He doesn't cause death, but, rather, exists because people die. He doesn't want people to die. It just means more work for him, and he would prefer to be sunning it up on a tropical island sipping strawberry daiquiris.

This image of her dying brother will haunt Liesel for many years and come to her every night as she sleeps. It's a very traumatic experience that shapes her life in many ways.

One of the saddest parts of the novel is when Liesel misses out on kissing Rudy when he's alive, and kisses him instead when he's dead.

This is to accentuate the number of Jewish people dying during the Holocaust, in Germany, and other locations in Europe. Normally, Death sees colors like, black, white, blue, etc. But, during these times, there were so many Jews being murdered, that they overshadow the other colors as Death takes them across the sky.

This is a good one. This makes dying sound not half bad. But, the big mystery is, where does Death take us after all this gentleness? For some clues, see the novel's final chapter.

Death can get just a tad sarcastic, especially when people he doesn't approve of die. This is his comment on Reinhold Zucker, the man who dies after forcing Hans to swap seats with him, and thus, unwittingly, saving Hans' life.

We quote this passage to show you those who didn't die – Liesel and Max. Were you surprised when Max walks through the door of Alex Steiner's tailor shop? If not, how did you see it coming?

It might be unnerving to hear Death addressing us so plainly. But he's not really telling us anything we don't know. Rather, he's expressing his vision of humans as sharing a common identity in our mortality.

That's German for Communist, as you can infer. The Communist Party was a legitimate political party in Germany with sizeable membership. Communists were definitely against Hitler and the Nazis and therefore would suffer a squashing. Although the facts are murky on this topic, Liesel's family is punished because of her father's identity as a Communist.

Rudy is just too loveable. Misogyny, dislike of females, is a good character for any guy not too have, whatever the age. We like that this is part of his identity.

This is Rudy, getting ready to take on the identity of his idol, Jesse Owens, a black American who won four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics held in Germany. Hitler was not pleased with Owens' triumph, but Rudy definitely was. To Rudy, black is definitely beautiful. He's sees past the propaganda surrounding him even at a young age.

The Nuremburg Laws were passed in 1933 and 1935. They stripped Jews of their German Citizenship and right to vote. Legally speaking, all Jews in Germany were in the country... illegally. This manipulation of the legal system was an integral part of the Nazi technique. Read more in "Setting."

Max knows that if he can "pass" as a non Jew long enough, he can get to Himmel Street, his best change for survival. The very best way to establish this identity temporarily is to carry a copy of Hitler's book.