I Am the Messenger

My favourite book will always be ‘I Am the Messenger” by Markus Zusak. It is not the most well-written book I have ever read, not the most intellectual, nor a book that people will pull from a bookshelf in two hundred years declaring “Now this, right here, is literature!” But it has the most heart. It is unpretentious, optimistic, and unashamedly human. It is a book that changes your perspective, one that makes you believe that you really can make a difference. And really, isn't that what writing is all about? 

'Our footsteps run, and I don't want them to end. I want to run and laugh and feel like this forever. I want to avoid any awkward moment when the realness of reality sticks its fork into our flesh, leaving us standing there, together. I want to stay here, in this moment, and never go to other places, where we don't know what to say or what to do.'

'It's not a big thing, but I guess, it's true-- big things are often just small things that are noticed.'

'It's with those words that I see things from Audrey's perspective. She liked me being just Ed. It was safer that way. Stable. Now I've changed things. I've left my own fingerprints on the world, no matter how small, and it's upset the equilibrium of us-- Audrey and me.'

'Carefully now, her statement comes out. "Believe it or not-- it takes a lot of love to hate you like this.’

‘I'd wanted to stay on that porch with him until the sun shone bright on both of us, but I didn't. I stood up and walked down the steps. I'd rather chase the sun than wait for it.'

'And if a guy like you can stand up and do what you did for all those people, well, maybe everyone can. Maybe everyone can live beyond what they're capable of.'