Australian writer (1975- )
There would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing.
MARKUS ZUSAK
The Book Thief
I look at my first books and am glad they weren't published.... You start writing by imitating your heroes, then you keep the heart of that worship in your work. As time goes by, you get other influences and find your own voice.
MARKUS ZUSAK
"On Top of His Game: SLJ Interviews Margaret A. Edwards Award Winner Markus Zusak", School Library Journal, Jun. 2, 2014
For a moment, I debated whether I should tell someone about the words I'd started writing down, but I couldn't. In a way, I felt ashamed, even though my writing was the one thing that whispered okayness in my ear. I didn't speak it, to anyone.
MARKUS ZUSAK
Getting the Girl
I see how complicated it is to make a film and how many people are involved and I love the fact that I get to sit in a room on my own and the set costs nothing and the actors cost nothing and I'm the director and it's so simple. You just need a pen and paper to make a book. You don't need a huge budget or a gaffer or a best boy.
MARKUS ZUSAK
interview, The Guardian, Feb. 25, 2014
I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.
MARKUS ZUSAK
The Book Thief
I think that as a writer your responsibility is to search for and stir up the things that are in this world. There is violence in all of us, and beauty, and strength, and weakness. What's my job? To only write about the good and the beauty, or is it to write about all of it? That's my greater responsibility, to write about them as I see them and as they are.
MARKUS ZUSAK
"On Top of His Game: SLJ Interviews Margaret A. Edwards Award Winner Markus Zusak", School Library Journal, Jun. 2, 2014
I wanted to drown inside a woman in the feeling and drooling of the love I could give her. I wanted her pulse to crush me with its intensity. That's what I wanted.
MARKUS ZUSAK
Getting the Girl
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
Fighting Ruben Wolfe
The happening that happened was that I met this girl.
MARKUS ZUSAK
Underdog
People observe the colors of a day only at its beginnings and ends, but to me it's quite clear that a day merges through a multitude of shades and intonations with each passing moment. A single hour can consist of thousands of different colors. Waxy yellows, cloud-spot blues. Murky darkness. In my line of work, I make it a point to notice them.
MARKUS ZUSAK
The Book Thief
I'm just another stupid human.
MARKUS ZUSAK
I Am the Messenger
There was sex, of course.
Nakedness.
Wall to wall, in and out of my thoughts.
But when it was over it was her whispering voice I craved, and a human curled up in my arms.
MARKUS ZUSAK
Getting the Girl
I don't really know that this story has a whole lot of things happen in it. It doesn't really. It's just a record of how things were in my life during this last winter. I guess things happened, but nothing out of the ordinary.
MARKUS ZUSAK
Underdog
Big things are often just small things that are noticed.
MARKUS ZUSAK
I Am the Messenger
MARKUS ZUSAK
interview, The Guardian, Feb. 25, 2014
A fight's worth nothing if you know from the start that you're going to win it.
MARKUS ZUSAK
Fighting Ruben Wolfe
It is early, early morning. It's that time when it's still dark but you know the day is coming. Blue is bleeding through black. Stars are dying.
MARKUS ZUSAK
Underdog
I don't write poetry or short stories. I don't like to write articles usually. I tend to really only want to be focused on writing novels. It's one of the real advantages I've had over the years. I've only been good at one thing. It helps to be limited.
MARKUS ZUSAK
"On Top of His Game: SLJ Interviews Margaret A. Edwards Award Winner Markus Zusak", School Library Journal, Jun. 2, 2014
I was standing there, waiting for someone to do something, till I realized the person I was waiting for was myself.
MARKUS ZUSAK
Underdog
It feels like spoken words, this bridge. I want it but fear it. God, I want so desperately to reach the other side -- just like I want the words. I want my words to build bridges strong enough to walk on. I want them to tower over the world so I can stand up on them and walk to the other side.
MARKUS ZUSAK
Getting the Girl