Quotes from Lois Lowry

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.

It's hard to give up the being together with someone.

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.

And they are beginning to realize that the world they live in is a place where the right thing is often hard, sometimes dangerous, and frequently unpopular.

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.

it is much easier to be brave if you do not know everything

The whole world had changed. Only the fairy tales remained the same. And they lived happily ever after

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.

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

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

But there was nothing left to do but continue

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.

Genius disregards the boundaries of propriety. Genius is permitted to shout if shouting is productive.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps the singing bird will come.