Messenger Lois Lowry Quotes

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

Teasing's part of the fun that comes before kissing

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

...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.

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

It was so important to him, and he made it important to me: poetry, and language, and how we use it to remind ourselves of how our lives should be lived . . .

It was an illusion. It was a tangled knot of fears and deceits and dark struggles for power that had disguised itself and almost destroyed everything. Now it was unfolding, like a flower coming into bloom, radiant with possibility.

When would he ever learn to stop saying “Look” to a man who had no eyes?

It's hard to leave the only place you've known.

She reached for Matty and embraced him. Ordinarily uncomfortable with hugs, he would have stiffened his shoulders and drawn back; but now, from exhaustion and affection, he held Kira and to his own amazement felt his eyes fill with tears.

Frequently the new ones were damaged. They hobbled on canes or were ill. Sometimes they were disfigured by wounds or simply because they had been born that way. Some were orphans. All of them were welcomed.

I cannot but remember such things were, That were most precious to me.

All of his strength and blood and breath were entering the earth now. His brain and spirit became part of the earth. He rose. He floated above, weightless, watching his human self labor and writhe. He gave himself to it willingly, traded himself for all that he loved and valued, and felt free.

now he knew that there were communities everywhere, sprinkled across the vast landscape of the known world, in which people suffered. Not always from beatings and hunger, the way he had. But from ignorance. From not knowing. From being kept from knowledge.

And he could see as well that they had not yet approached the worst of it.

But somehow the small red-painted sled had become a symbol of courage and hope.

way, he had hoped he would not. His life would

hurry through the evening’s last light to the homeplace, where the blind

Our gifts are our weaponry,

I am the Fiercest of the Fierce.

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.

For me? The very first time I saw beyond? It was an apple.

Some of those who had been among the most industrious, the kindest, and the most stalwart citizens of Village now went to the platform and shouted their wish that the border be closed so that 'we' (Matty shuddered at the use of 'we') would not have to share the resources anymore. 'We need all the fish for ourselves. Our school is not big enough to teach their children, too; only our own. They can't even speak right. We can't understand them. They have too many needs. We don't want to tale care of them.' And finally: 'We've done it long enough.

Kira, your leg will take a great deal out of me. I'll have to sleep, after, maybe for a whole day or even longer. And I don't have much time." She looked at him quizzically. "Time for what?" "I'll explain. But for now, I think we should start. If I do it right away, I can sleep completely through the night and almost all of the morning. You can use that time to become accustomed to being whole..." "I [i]am[/i] whole," she said defiantly.

Some books had shiny pages that showed paintings of landscapes unlike anything Matty had ever seen, or of people costumed in odd ways, or of battles, and there were many quiet painted scenes of a woman holding a newborn child.

there were communities everywhere, sprinkled across the vast landscape of the known world, in which people suffered. Not always from beatings and hunger, the way he had. But from ignorance. From not knowing. From being kept from knowledge.

To his surprise, Jean kissed him. So often in the past, teasing, she had said she would, one day. Now she did, and it was a quick and fragrant touch to his lips that gave him courage and, even before he started out made him yearn to come back home.

It bothered him a little to lie about small things. But he always had; he had grown up lying, and he still found it strange that the people in this place where he now lived thought lying was wrong. To Matty, it was sometimes a way of making things easier, more comfortable, more convenient.

He remembered that in the art books he had leafed through at Leader's, many paintings depicted death. A severed head on a platter. A battle, and the ground strewn with bodies. Swords and spears and fire; and nails being pounded into the tender flesh of a man's hands. Painters had preserved such pain through beauty.

Over the many years since The Giver was published in 1993, I have received countless, probably thousands, letters and emails from readers. So many of them asked what had happened to the boy, Jonas, and the baby, Gabriel. I had left the ending ambiguous on purpose; I liked the mystery of it, the opportunity for the reader to ponder and decide. But I, too, was pondering. In 2000, seven years later, the companion volume Gathering Blue appeared, revealing that Jonas (he wasn’t named, but young readers identified the teenaged boy with blue eyes easily) was thriving in another community. Four years after that, in Messenger, they were able to meet him as a young man now leading the small village where he lived. “But where’s Gabriel?” kids asked me, almost wailing, and I told them to go back and read chapter two more carefully. There they would find an eight-year-old named Gabe staying after school because he had been inattentive. Finally, in the fourth and final book of the quartet, Son, published in 2012, the now teenaged Gabe moved to center stage, finding his own place in the world—helping, in fact, to change that world. So the question of “What happened to . . .” was put to rest.

Cooking's a bother.

Matty had felt this sensation—the

With her toddler playing on the floor by her feet, his widow now nursed her new baby on the porch of her homeplace, attended by comforting women who sat with their knitting and embroidery and spoke only of happy things.

Our gifts are our weaponry

He wasn’t surprised. After the thorny branches had shredded her dress, they had reached for her legs as night fell, and now he could see that she was terribly lacerated. The wounds were deep, and he could see exposed muscles and tendons glisten yellow and pink in a devastating kind of beauty where the ragged flesh gaped open.

In the schoolhouse, Mentor, the schoolteacher, gently tutored a mischievous eight-year-old named Gabe, who had neglected his studies to play and now needed help.

There are only three weeks left, Matty. After the border closes it will be too late. She won't be allowed to come. You must bring her here before that happens. "If you don't, Matty, I will never see her again." "It always seems strange to me when you say 'see.'" The blind man smiled. "I see in my heart, Matty.

Yes, she dyes the threads and then she makes pictures from them. No one else can do it. She has like a magic touch, they say. And they want her for that.” “She would be honored in Village.

But here in Village, marks and failings were not considered flaws at all. They were valued.

Is there something wrong with your shoes?” he asked,