Lois Lowry The Giver Quotes

The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.

Take pride in your pain; you are stronger than those who have none

We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.

I feel sorry for anyone who is in a place where he feels strange and stupid.

If you were to be lost in the river, Jonas, your memories would not be lost with you. Memories are forever.

It's the choosing that's important, isn't it?

Of course they needed to care. It was the meaning of everything.

The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without colour, pain or past.

For the first time, he heard something that he knew to be music. He heard people singing. Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps, it was only an echo.

They were satisfied with their lives which had none of the vibrance his own was taking on. And he was angry at himself, that he could not change that for them.

Even trained for years as they all had been in precision of language, what words could you use which would give another the experience of sunshine?

I knew that there had been times in the past-terrible times-when people had destroyed others in haste,in fear, and had brought about their own destruction

If everything's the same, then there aren't any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!

He wept, and it felt as if the tears were cleansing him, as if his body needed to empty itself.

The man that I named the Giver passed along to the boy knowledge, history, memories, color, pain, laughter, love, and truth. Every time you place a book in the hands of a child, you do the same thing. It is very risky. But each time a child opens a book, he pushes open the gate that separates him from Elsewhere. It gives him choices. It gives him freedom. Those are magnificent, wonderfully unsafe things. [from her Newberry Award acceptance speech]

Teasing's part of the fun that comes before kissing

Gabe?" The newchild stirred slightly in his sleep. Jonas looked over at him. "There could be love", Jonas whispered.

It's just that... without the memories it's all meaningless.

I liked the feeling of love,' [Jonas] confessed. He glanced nervously at the speaker on the wall, reassuring himself that no one was listening. 'I wish we still had that,' he whispered. 'Of course,' he added quickly, 'I do understand that it wouldn't work very well. And that it's much better to be organized the way we are now. I can see that it was a dangerous way to live.' ...'Still,' he said slowly, almost to himself, 'I did like the light they made. And the warmth.

Today is declared an unscheduled holiday.

He knew that there was no quick comfort for emotions like those. They were deeper and they did not need to be told. They were felt.

You may lie.

Behind him,across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps it was only an echo.

I don't know what you mean when you say 'the whole world' or 'generations before him.'I thought there was only us. I thought there was only now.

What if they were allowed to choose their own mate? And chose wrong?

He hunched his shoulders and tried to make himself smaller in the seat. He wanted to disappear, to fade away, not to exist.

Fear dims when you learn things.

...now he saw the familiar wide river beside the path differently. He saw all of the light and color and history it contained and carried in its slow - moving water; and he knew that there was an Elsewhere from which it came, and an Elsewhere to which it was going

He wept because he was afraid now that he could not save Gabriel. He no longer cared about himself

And here in this room, I re-experience the memories again and again it is how wisdom comes and how we shape our future.

Be proud of your pain, for you are stronger than those with none.

It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened.

The community of the Giver had achieved at such great price. A community without danger or pain. But also, a community without music, color or art. And books.

Memories are forever.

When people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong, every single time.

- My instructors in science and technology have taught us about how the brain works. It's full of electrical impulses. It's like a computer. If you stimulate one part of the brain with an electrode, it... - They know nothing.

It be better, I think, to climb out in search of something, instead of hating, what you're leaving.

But there was nothing left to do but continue

There's much more. There's all that goes beyond – all ... that is Elsewhere – and all that goes back, and back, and back. I received all of those, when I was selected. And here in this room, all alone, I re-experience them again and again. It is how wisdom comes. And how we shape our future.

The man that I named The Giver passed along to the boy knowledge, history, memories, color, pain, laughter, love, and truth. Every time you place a book in the hands of a child, you do the same thing.

There was just a moment when things weren't quite the same, weren't quite as they had always been through the long friendship

Things could change, Gabe," Jonas went on. "Things could be different. I don't know how, but there must be some way for things to be different. There could be colors. And grandparents," he added, staring through the dimness toward the ceiling of his sleepingroom. "And everybody would have the memories." "You know the memories," he whispered, turning toward the crib. Garbriel's breathing was even and deep. Jonas liked having him there, though he felt guilty about the secret. Each night he gave memories to Gabriel: memories of boat rides and picnics in the sun; memories of soft rainfall against windowpanes; memories of dancing barefoot on a damp lawn. "Gabe?" The newchild stirred slightly in his sleep. Jonas looked over at him. "There could be love," Jonas whispered.

We're the ones who will fill in the blank places. Maybe we can make it different.

His mind reeled. Now, empowered to ask questions of utmost rudeness-and promised answers-he could, conceivably (though it was almost unimaginable), ask someone, some adult, his father perhaps: "Do you lie?" But he would have no way of knowing if the answer he received was true.

...what words could you use which would give another the experience of sunshine?

They have never known pain, he thought. The realization made him feel desperately lonely.

...how could you describe a hill and snow to someone who had never felt height or wind or that feathery, magical cold?

Take pride in your pain," her mother had always told her. "You are stronger than those who have none.

Because of fear, they made shelter and found food and grew things. For the same reason, weapons were stored, waiting.

Things seem more when you’re little. They seem bigger, and distances seem farther.

The worse part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.

Pretending doesn't keep you safe.

Submitting to censorship is to enter the seductive world of 'The Giver': the world where there are no bad words and no bad deeds. But it is also the world where choice has been taken away and reality distorted. And that is the most dangerous world of all.

If he had stayed, he would have starved in other ways.

Our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness. Before my time, before the previous time, back and back and back. We relinquished color when we relinquished sunshine and did away with difference. We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.

...That's why we have the Museum, Matty, to remind us of how we came, and why: to start fresh, and begin a new place from what we had learned and carried from the old.

..you have more than you know. And people will want what you have.

I'm going to give you the memory of a rainbow.

He gestured toward her twisted leg. "Like you. Some don't walk good. Some be broken in other ways. Not all. But lots. Do you think it maken them quiet and nice, to be broken?

All of it was new to him. After a life of Sameness and predictability, he was awed by the surprises that lay beyond each curve of the road.

Thank you for your childhood.

...an urge, a need, a passionate yearning to share the warmth with the one person left for him to love.

Didn't life consist of the things you did each day?

For all for children To whom we entrust the future

And it was lonely, to yearn, all alone.

Go, " he said. "This is your journey, your battle. Be brave. Find your gift. Use it to save what you love.

Depth, he decided; as if one were looking into the clear water of the river, down to the bottom, where things might lurk which hadn't been discovered yet.

Once, back in the time of the memories, everything had a shape and size, the way things still do, but they also had a quality called COLOR.

Evil can do anything, for a price.

Think only on the climb. Think on what you control

To sadden. To bloom. To bleed. What a strange set of words.

It's not true. I need all of you. We need each other.

The man corrected him. "Honor," he said firmly. "I have great honor. So will you. But you will find that that is not the same as power.

Well...," Jonas had to stop and think it through. "If everything's the same, then there are no choices! I want to wake up in the morning and DECIDE things! A blue tunic, or a red one?

That's why they call you Seer. You see more than most.

When you care about someone and give them something special. Something that they treasire. That's a gift.

There was never any comfortable way to mention or discuss one's successes without breaking the rule against bragging, even if one didn't mean to.

A book, to me, is almost sacrosanct: such an individual and private thing. The reader brings his or her own history and beliefs and concerns, and reads in solitude, creating each scene from his own imagination as he does. There is no fellow ticket-holder in the next seat.

You will fail. Then they will kill you." - Vandara to Kira, following Kira's trial.

always busy because of interesting books

Always in the dream, it seemed as if there were a destination: a something--he could not grasp what-that lay beyond the place where the thickness of snow brought the sled to a stop. He was left, upon awakening, with the feeling that he wanted, even somehow needed, to reach the something that waited in the distance. The feeling that it was good. That it was welcoming. That it was significant. But he did not know how to get there.

Now he saw another elephant emerge from the place where it had stood hidden in the trees. Very slowly it walked to the mutilated body and looked down. With its sinuous trunk it struck the huge corpse; then it reached up, broke some leafy branches with a snap, and draped them over the mass of torn thick flesh. Finally it tilted its massive head, raised its trunk, and roared into the empty landscape.

Frightened meant that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen.

Gay!' he chirped. 'Gay!' It was the way he said his own name.

It was as simple as that. Once he had yearned for choice. then, when he had had a choice, he had made the wrong one: the choice to leave. And now he was starving. But if he had stayed... His thoughts continued. If he had stayed, he would have starved in other ways. He would have lived a life hungry for feelings, for color, for love.

Jonas felt a ripping sensation inside himself, the feeling of terrible pain clawing its way forward to emerge in a cry.

You will be faced, now, with pain of a magnitude that none of us here can comprehend because it is beyond our experience. The Receiver himself was not able to describe it, only to remind us that you would be faced with it, that you would need immense courage.

Thomas," she suggested, "you and I? We're the ones who will fill in the blank places. Maybe we can make it different.

Precision of language, Jonah.

He found that he was often angry, now: irrationally angry at his groupmates, that they were satisfied with their lives which had none of the vibrance his own was taking on. And he was angry at himself, that he could not change that for them.

Sometimes he awoke with a feeling of fragments afloat in his sleep, but he couldn't seem to grasp them and put them together into something worthy of telling at the ritual.

They can't help it. They know nothing

The man that I named The Giver passed along to the boy knowledge, history, memories, color, pain, laughter, love, and truth. Every time you place a book in the hands of a child, you do the same thing. It is very risky. But each time a child opens a book, he pushes open the gate that separates him from Elsewhere. It gives him choices. It gives him freedom. Those are magnificent, wonderfully unsafe things.

But why can't everyone have the memories? I think it would seem a little easier if the memories were shared. You and I wouldn't have to bear so much by ourselves, if everybody took a part." The Giver sighed. "You're right," he said. "But then everyone would be burdened and pained. They don't want that. And that's the real reason The Receiver is so vital to them, and so honored. They selected me - and you - to lift that burden from themselves.

The important thing is that another medium—stage, film, music—doesn’t obliterate a book. The movie is here now, on a big screen, with stars and costumes and a score. But the book hasn’t gone away. It has simply grown up, grown larger, and begun to glisten in a new way.

Do you love me?" There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then Father gave a little chuckle. "Jonas. You, of all people. Precision of language, please!" "What do you mean?" Jonas asked. Amusement was not at all what he had anticipated. "Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it's become almost obsolete," his mother explained carefully. Jonas stared at them. Meaningless? He had never before felt anything as meaningful as the memory. "And of course our community can't function smoothly if people don't use precise language. You could ask, 'Do you enjoy me?' The answer is 'Yes,'" his mother said. "Or," his father suggested, "'Do you take pride in my accomplishments?' And the answer is wholeheartedly 'Yes.'" "Do you understand why it's inappropriate to use a word like 'love'?" Mother asked. Jonas nodded. "Yes, thank you, I do," he replied slowly. It was his first lie to his parents.

She was willing to give you everything she had. And you took it from her. You took her youth, and her beauty, and her energy and her health-" For a moment, think of his mother, Gabe couldn't continue speaking. He fell silent and choked back tears. Then he took a deep breath and went on, "- and it didn't matter. We found each other. None of it mattered but that. You won't ever know what that's like, to love someone. In a way, I pity you. But I hope you starve.

He called after her as she walked away on the path. "Alys? Why were we dancing?" "Take your mind there again," she called back. "You'll remember!" To herself she murmured, shaking her head with amusement as her eyes twinkled at her own memory. "Only thirteen. But we was barefoot and flower-strewn and foolish with first love.

Lily appeared, wearing her nightclothes, in the doorway. She gave an impatient sigh. 'This is certainly a very LONG private conversation,' she said. 'And there are certain people waiting for their comfort object.' Lily,' her mother said fondly, 'you're very close to being an Eight, and when you're an Eight, your comfort object will be taken away. It will be recycled to the younger children. You should be starting to go off to sleep without it.' But her father had already gone to the shelf and taken down the stuffed elephant which was kept there. Many of the comfort objects, like Lily's, were soft, stuffed, imaginary creatures. Jonas's had been called a bear. Here you are, Lily-billy,' he said. 'I'll come help you remove your hair ribbons.

We’re almost there, Gabriel,” he whispered, feeling quite certain without knowing why. “I remember this place, Gabe.” And it was true. But it was not a grasping of a thin and burdensome recollection; this was different. This was something that he could keep. It was a memory of his own. He hugged Gabriel and rubbed him briskly, warming him, to keep him alive. The wind was bitterly cold. The snow swirled, blurring his vision. But somewhere ahead, through the blinding storm, he knew there was warmth and light. Using his final strength, and a special knowledge that was deep inside him, Jonas found the sled that was waiting for them at the top of the hill. Numbly his hands fumbled for the rope. He settled himself on the sled and hugged Gabe close. The hill was steep but the snow was powdery and soft, and he knew that this time there would be no ice, no fall, no pain. Inside his freezing body, his heart surged with hope. They started down. Jonas felt himself losing consciousness and with his whole being willed himself to stay upright atop the sled, clutching Gabriel, keeping him safe. The runners sliced through the snow and the wind whipped at his face as they sped in a straight line through an incision that seemed to lead to the final destination, the place that he had always felt was waiting, the Elsewhere that held their future and their past. He forced his eyes open as they went downward, downward, sliding, and all at once he could see lights, and he recognized them now. He knew they were shining through the windows of rooms, that they were the red, blue, and yellow lights that twinkled from trees in places where families created and kept memories, where they celebrated love. Downward, downward, faster and faster. Suddenly he was aware with certainty and joy that below, ahead, they were waiting for him; and that they were waiting, too, for the baby. For the first time, he heard something that he knew to be music. He heard people singing. Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps it was only an echo.