Quotes About Community

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.

That day had changed him. It had changed the entire village. Shaken by the death of a boy they had loved, each person had found ways to be more worthy of the sacrifice he had made. They had become kinder, more careful, more attentive to one another.

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.

Call me The Giver," he told Jonas.

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.

Friends will take care of them. That's what friends do.

The Giver shrugged. "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 differences." He thought for a moment. "We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.

For a contributing citizen to be released from the community was a final decision, a terrible punishment, an overwhelming statement of failure.

A teenage girl wrote that she had been considering suicide until she read The Giver.

That had day changed him. It had changed the entire village. Shaken by the death of a boy they had loved, each person found ways to be more worthy of the sacrifice he had made. They had become kinder, more careful, more attentive to one another.

My work will be finished when I have helped the community to change and become whole.

He sat in his dwelling alone, watching through the window, seeing children at play, citizens bicycling home from uneventful days at work, ordinary lives free of anguish because he had been selected, as others before him had, to bear their burden.

a contributing citizen to be released from the community was a final decision, a terrible punishment, an overwhelming statement of failure.

Was there someone there, waiting, who would receive the tiny released twin? Would it grow up Elsewhere, not knowing, ever, that in this community lived a being who looked exactly the same? For a moment, he felt a tiny, fluttering hope that he knew was quite foolish. He hoped that it would be Larissa, waiting. Larissa, the old woman he had bathed. He remembered her sparkling eyes, her soft voice, her low chuckle. Fiona had told him recently that Larissa had been released at a wonderful ceremony.

A stage adaptation of The Giver has been performed in cities and towns across the USA for years. More recently an opera has been composed and performed. And soon

No. But why would I go back? I had found a home here, the way everyone has. 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.

Jonas, listening, thought suddenly about the bridge and how, standing there, he had wondered what lay Elsewhere. Was there someone there, waiting, who would receive the tiny released twin? Would it grow up Elsewhere, not knowing, ever, that in this community lives a being who looked exactly the same?

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.

They spoke of the history of Village, how each of them there had fled poverty and cruelty and been welcomed at this new place that had taken them in.

There were more than usual this time. "It's a big group," Matty whispered to the blind man. "Yes, I can hear that it is. I wonder if somehow they have begun to hear rumors that we may close.

The Old of the community did not ever leave their special place, the House of the Old, where they were so well cared for and respected.

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. The front-buttoned jacket was the first sign of independence, the first very visible symbol of growing up.

From another: ". . . Jonas was kind of like Jesus because he took the pain for everyone else in the community so they wouldn't have to suffer. And, at the very end of the book, when Jonas and Gabe reached the place that they knew as Elsewhere, you described Elsewhere as if it were heaven.

Do you remember the day when the plane flew over the community? Yes. I was scared. So were they. They prepared to shoot it down. But they sought my advice. I told them to wait. But how did you know? How did you know the pilot was lost? I didn't. I used my wisdom, from the memories. 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.