The Giver Quotes

“We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.”

“They have never known pain, he thought. The realization made him feel desperately lonely.”

“But there was nothing left to do but continue”

“If everything’s the same, then there aren’t any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!”

“I don’t know what you mean when you say ‘the whole world’ or ‘generations before him.‘I thought there was only us. I thought there was only now.”

“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.”

“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.”

“You may lie.”

“It’s the choosing that’s important, isn’t it?”

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

“I liked the feeling of love,” he confessed. He glanced nervously at the speaker on the wall, reassuring himself that no one was listening. “I wish we still had that,” he whispered. “Of course,” he added quickly, “I do understand that it wouldn’t work very well. And that it’s much better to be organized the way we are now. I can see that it was a dangerous way to live.”

“What if they were allowed to choose their own mate? And chose wrong?”

“But why can’t everyone have the memories? I think it would seem a little easier if the memories were shared. You and I wouldn’t have to bear so much by ourselves, if everybody took a part.” The Giver sighed. “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.”

“Of course they needed to care. It was the meaning of everything.”

“He knew that there was no quick comfort for emotions like those. They were deeper and they did not need to be told. They were felt.”

“...how could you describe a hill and snow to someone who had never felt height or wind or that feathery, magical cold?”

“There was never any comfortable way to mention or discuss one’s successes without breaking the rule against bragging, even if one didn’t mean to.”

“The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without colour, pain or past.”

“There’s much more. There’s all that goes beyond – all ... that is Elsewhere – and all that goes back, and back, and back. I received all of those, when I was selected. And here in this room, all alone, I re-experience them again and again. It is how wisdom comes. And how we shape our future.”

“It was as simple as that. Once he had yearned for choice. then, when he had had a choice, he had made the wrong one: the choice to leave. And now he was starving. But if he had stayed... His thoughts continued. If he had stayed, he would have starved in other ways. He would have lived a life hungry for feelings, for color, for love.”

“He wept because he was afraid now that he could not save Gabriel. He no longer cared about himself”

“They were satisfied with their lives which had none of the vibrance his own was taking on. And he was angry at himself, that he could not change that for them.”

“Even trained for years as they all had been in precision of language, what words could you use which would give another the experience of sunshine?”

“It’s just that... without the memories it’s all meaningless.”

“If you were to be lost in the river, Jonas, your memories would not be lost with you. Memories are forever.”

“For the first time, he heard something that he knew to be music. He heard people singing. Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps, it was only an echo.”