When Rudy jumps in the cold river to retrieve Liesel's book.
And then he ask for a kiss.
Hans comforting Liesel after her nightmares.
Both of Max's stories for Liesel: The Standover Man and The Word Shaker.
The gifts which Liesel brings to Max while he's unconscious with illness.
Rudy giving the dying enemy pilot a teddy bear.
Max manages to survive the camp he's sent to, and finds Liesel again. "They hugged and cried and fell to the floor."
Death reassures us that Liesel had a long, happy life despite the horrors she saw. The mayor's wife insisted on adopting her, and Max was one of her lifelong friends. Liesel later moved to New York, married as an adult, and dies as a doting grandmother. After seeing her family and friends killed, it's a relief that she found a way to move forward.
I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race — that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.
The whole Don't Fear the Reaper trope throughout the book: Death is probably the sweetest, kindest character in the entire story, someone who is constantly astounded by humanity, who is just trying to do a miserable job in the nicest way they can.
The description of Hans’s commanding officer in WWI offering one of his men the chance to survive and avoid a big charge, and Hans being saved that way, with it leading to his promise to help his friends family and how seriously he takes that description of Max world war and fighting friend.
Liesel’s friendship with the mayor’s wife, who lets her take books.
Max being sheltered by his Friendly Rival Walter before going to the Huberman’s.
When it is revealed that Max Vanderburg survived the concentration camps and found Liesel in Frau Hermann's house. Frau Hermann taking Liesel into her house also counts as one.
More than that...words cannot describe it. Discworld's is not the only Death who can manage a Heartwarming Moment. He's talking about the bombings, and it seems almost heartless... and then he says "It was only the children I carried in my arms." And to sum it all up:
"Even death has a heart."
When Death finally meets the girl he's spent so much time thinking about, and watching her get left behind.
