Page 186 - The Book Thief

Personally, I quite like that. Such stupid gallantry.

Yes.

I like that a lot.

From that moment on, he started to fight with greater regularity. A group of die-
hard friends and enemies would gather down at a small reserve on Steber Street,
and they would fight in the dying light. Archetypal Germans, the odd Jew, the
boys from the east. It didnt matter. There was nothing like a good fight to expel
the teenage energy. Even the enemies were an inch away from friendship.

He enjoyed the tight circles and the unknown.

The bittersweetness of uncertainty:

To win or to lose.

It was a feeling in the stomach that would be stirred around until he thought he
could no longer tolerate it. The only remedy was to move forward and throw
punches. Max was not the type of boy to die thinking about it.

His favorite fight, now that he looked back, was Fight Number Five against a
tall, tough, rangy kid named Walter Kugler. They were fifteen. Walter had won
all four of their previous encounters, but this time, Max could feel something
different. There was new blood in himthe blood of victoryand it had the
capability to both frighten and excite.

As always, there was a tight circle crowded around them. There was grubby

ground. There were smiles practically wrapped around the onlooking faces.
Money was clutched in filthy fingers, and the calls and cries were filled with
such vitality that there was nothing else but this.

God, there was such joy and fear there, such brilliant commotion.

The two fighters were clenched with the intensity of the moment, their faces
loaded up with expression, exaggerated with the stress of it. The wide-eyed
concentration.