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Quotes About Sacrifice

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.
~ Lois Lowry
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.
~ Lois Lowry
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.
~ Lois Lowry
If he had stayed, he would have starved in other ways.
~ Lois Lowry
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.
~ Lois Lowry
She would die, Claire realized, before she would give up the love she felt for her son.
~ Lois Lowry
Sometimes we have to hurt people, in order to keep ourselves whole. We must just do it with love, that's all.
~ Lois Lowry
Any Danish citizen would die for King Christian, to protect him.
~ Lois Lowry
We relinquished color when we relinquished sunshine and did away with differences. {...} We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.
~ Lois Lowry
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.
~ 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.
~ Lois Lowry
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.
~ Lois Lowry
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.
~ Lois Lowry
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.
~ Lois Lowry
Mama, what is this?" she asked suddenly, reaching into the grass at the foot of the steps. Mama looked. She gasped. "Oh, my God," she said. Annemarie picked it up. She recognized it now, knew what it was. It was the packet that Peter had given to Mr. Rosen. "Mr. Rosen tripped on the step, remember? It must have fallen from his pocket. We'll have to save it and give it back to Peter." Annemarie handed it to her mother. "Do you know what it is?
~ Lois Lowry
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.
~ Lois Lowry
Jonas did not want to go back. He didn't want the memories, didn't want the honor, didn't want the wisdom, didn't want the pain. He wanted his childhood again, his scraped knees and ball games. 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. But the choice was not his.
~ Lois Lowry
The Giver hugged him. "I love you, Jonas," he said. "But I have another place to go. When my work here is finished, I want to be with my daughter.
~ Lois Lowry
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.
~ Lois Lowry
Danes had on their windows; the entire city had to be completely darkened at night. In a nearby tree, a bird was singing; otherwise it was quiet. It was the last night of September. "Go, now, and get into your nightgowns. It will be a long night." Annemarie and Ellen got to their feet. Papa suddenly crossed the room and put his arms around them both. He kissed the top of each head: Annemarie's blond one, which reached to his shoulder, and Ellen's dark hair, the thick
~ Lois Lowry
It was only in the fairy tales that people were called upon to be so brave, to die for one another. Not in real-life Denmark.
~ Lois Lowry
I'm grateful to you, Jonas, because without you I would never have figured out a way to bring about the change. But your role now is to escape. And my role is to stay.
~ Lois Lowry
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.
~ Lois Lowry
The Giver continued. "I backed off, gave her more little delights. But everything changed, once she knew about pain. I could see it in her eyes." "She wasn't brave enough?" Jonas suggested. The Giver didn't respond to the question. "She insisted that I continue, that I not spare her. She said it was her duty. And I knew, of course, that she was correct.
~ Lois Lowry