Quotes from Lois Lowry

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.

Maybe someday, if I succeed at something, I'll stop saying, It isn't fair about everything else.

It's a funny thing about names, how they become a part of someone.

The door to the cottage was open. She was standing there in her nightdress, breathing deeply of the daybreak air. She was tall and slender, with coppery hair that fell in curls around her shoulders. Hearing him, she turned to Jonas and smiled. He thought he heard her say, "I see the sun." Indeed, the sky was pink with dawn light. Then Jonas looked past Claire and saw Gabe approaching on the path.   THE END

Only the moon was familiar

Two children—one male, one female—to each family unit. It was written very clearly in the rules.

with a rhythmic sound of languid water lapping hypnotically against a beach nearby.

Fours, Fives, and Sixes all wore jackets that fastened down the back so that they would have to help each other dress and would learn interdependence.

Walter cares more about what a book has to say than he does about whether he can turn it into a stuffed animal or a calendar or a movie.

It wasn't the same. I'm pretty good at making the best of things, but it wasn't the same.

each change, painful though some of them will be, will make us a little better than we were before.

I brug you two [gifts] . . . I gots the little here in my pockie.' He dug one hand deep into his pocket and pulled out a handful of nuts and a dead grasshopper. 'Nope. Be the other side.' (Matt)

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

Call me The Giver," he told Jonas.

Don't grow much more, or you will be taller than I am, little Longlegs! Annemarie smiled, but Peter's comment was no longer the lighthearted fun of the past. It was only a brief grasp at something that had gone.

You suggested, Jonas, that perhaps she wasn't brave enough? I don't know about bravery: what it is, what it means. I do know that I sat here numb with horror. Wretched with helplessness. And I listened as Rosemary told them that she would prefer to inject herself.

But they don't want change. Life here is so orderly, so predictable-so painless. It's what they've chosen.

Definitely not safe," Jonas said with certainty. "What if they were allowed to choose their own mate? And chose wrong? "Or what if," he went on, almost laughing at the absurdity, "they chose their own jobs?" "Frightening, isn't it?" The Giver said. Jonas

It was the helplessness that scared the both of us.

If you put pussy willows in water, they'll blossom and then die. Just put them in the vase alone, and they'll stay beautiful forever.

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

My best friend—her name was Helena—lived in that house. Sometimes I used to spend the night with her. But more often she came to my house, on weekends. It was more fun to be in the country.

Most of the people on the night crew had not even been given spouses because they lacked, somehow, the essential capacity to connect to others, which was required for the creation of a family unit.

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. He slowed the bike again and again to look with wonder at wildflowers, go enjoy the throaty warble of a new bird nearby, or merely to watch the way wind shifted the leaves in the trees. During his twelve years in the community, he had never felt such simple moments of exquisite happiness.