He's most likely robbing the bank as a paycheck on the world for winning the ugliness prize at his local fete three years running.

A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.

… 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.

Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.

Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.

Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are.

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

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.

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

Sometimes I just survive. But sometimes I stand on the rooftop of my existence, arms stretched out, begging for more.

If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.

The more God-centered our worship practices, the more mercy-centered our life.

When we see a beautiful object, a beautiful garden, or a beautiful flower, let us think that there we behold a ray of the infinite beauty of God, who has given existence to that object.

God will judge us by our own thoughts and deeds, not by what others say about us.

O to be in finland/ now that russia's here)

I am far from sure when I am acting and when I am not or, should I more frankly put it, when I am lying and when I am not. For what is acting but lying and what is good acting but convincing lying?

I was a very driven person, wanting to help and to do good, hopefully to write and teach in a meaningful way - wanting to make change. And I discovered humbly that life was changing me.

However we may pity the mother whose health and even life is imperiled by the performance of her natural duty, there yet remains no sufficient reason for condoning the direct murder of the innocent.

It moves one's heart to think: Nine months before I was born there was a woman who loved me deeply. She did not know what I was going to be like, but she loved me because she carried me in her womb.

Let your children be as so many flowers, borrowed from God. If the flowers die or wither, thank God for a summer loan of them.

Don't ask me how I am,' I blurt. 'Please.' I want to keep feeling good. Just because the lights are on doesn't mean I have to look.