Things could change, Gabe," Jonas went on. "Things could be different. I don't know how, but there must be some way for things to be different. There could be colors. And grandparents," he added, staring through the dimness toward the ceiling of his sleepingroom. "And everybody would have the memories.""You know the memories," he whispered, turning toward the crib.Garbriel's breathing was even and deep. Jonas liked having him there, though he felt guilty about the secret. Each night he gave memories to Gabriel: memories of boat rides and picnics in the sun; memories of soft rainfall against windowpanes; memories of dancing barefoot on a damp lawn."Gabe?"The newchild stirred slightly in his sleep. Jonas looked over at him."There could be love," Jonas whispered.

Gabe?"The newchild stirred slightly in his sleep. Jonas looked over at him. "There could be love", Jonas whispered.

I feel sorry for anyone who is in a place where he feels strange and stupid.

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

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

Honor,' he said firmly. 'I have great honor. So will you. But you will find that that is not the same as power.

Memory is the happiness of being alone.

That's all that brave means - not thinking about the dangers. Just thinking about what you must do. Of course you were frightened. I was too, today. But you kept your mind on what you had to do.

It was my journey and i had to do it without help. I had to find my own strengths, face my own fears.

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

...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.

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

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.

Ellen had said that her mother was afraid of the ocean, that it was too cold and too big. The sky was, too, thought Annemarie. The whole world was: too cold, too big. And too cruel.

Go, " he said. "This is your journey, your battle. Be brave. Find your gift. Use it to save what you love.

But there's a whole world waiting, still, and there are good things in it.

...you can pretend that bad things will never happen. But life's a lot easier if you realize and admit that sometimes they do.

It is so good to have friends who understand how there is a time for crying and a time for laughing, and that sometimes the two are very close together.

We're so accustomed to laughing. It's harder for us when the time comes that we can't laugh.

Dangers were no more than odd imaginings, like ghost stories that children made up to frighten one another: things that couldn't possibly happen.

Lily appeared, wearing her nightclothes, in the doorway. She gave an impatient sigh. 'This is certainly a very LONG private conversation,' she said. 'And there are certain people waiting for their comfort object.'Lily,' her mother said fondly, 'you're very close to being an Eight, and when you're an Eight, your comfort object will be taken away. It will be recycled to the younger children. You should be starting to go off to sleep without it.'But her father had already gone to the shelf and taken down the stuffed elephant which was kept there. Many of the comfort objects, like Lily's, were soft, stuffed, imaginary creatures. Jonas's had been called a bear.Here you are, Lily-billy,' he said. 'I'll come help you remove your hair ribbons.

Oh, sometimes it's just easier to please people," Maria said finally.

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

... and she was awed to see that vibrant life still struggled to thrive despite such destruction.

I don't know what she is now. A stranger, mostly. It's as if she has become a part of a different world, one that doesn't include me anymore....

I laugh, because he knew what I was thinking, and very few people ever know what I'm thinking.

You know, sometimes it's nice to just have someone to blame, even if it has to be yourself, even if it doesn't make sense.

Ravaged all,Bogo tabalTimore toronTotoo now gone...

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.

Dying is a very solitary thing. The only thing we can do it be there when she wants us there.

Looking back together, telling our stories to one another, we learn how to be on our own.

She's sure, absolutely sure, that what she's waiting for will happen, just the way she wants it to; and I'm so uncertain, so fearful my dreams will end up forgotten somewhere, someday, like a piece of string and a paperclip lying in a dish.

She smiles, and her eyes look as if they can see back into her memory, into all the things that have gone into making a person what they are.

Over and over. They be making me remember everythings. Me old songs, they just be natural. But now they be stuffing new things into me and this poor head hurts horrid.

She was the only doctor's wife in Branford, Maine, who hung her wash on an outdoor clothesline instead of putting it through a dryer, because she liked to look out the window and see the clothes blowing in the wind. She had been especially delighted, one day, when one sleeve of the top of her husband's pajamas, prodded by the stiff breeze off the bay, reached over and grabbed her nightgown around the waist.

Finally he steeled himself to read the final rule again. He had been trained since earliest childhood, since his earliest learning of language, never to lie. It was an integral part of the learning of precise speech. Once, when he had been a Four, he had said, just prior to the midday meal at school, “I’m starving.” Immediately he had been taken aside for a brief private lesson in language precision. He was not starving, it was pointed out. He was hungry. No one in the community was starving, had ever been starving, would ever be starving. To say “starving” was to speak a lie. An unintentioned lie, of course. But the reason for precision of language was to ensure that unintentional lies were never uttered. Did he understand that? they asked him. And he had.

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

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

It was because someone who was a real friend was having the exact same feelings I was having, about something that was more important to me than anything else. I bet there are people who go through a whole life and never experience that.

Things could change Gabe. Things could be different. I don't know how, but there must be some way for things to be different. There could be colors. And grandparents. And everybody would have memories. You know about memories...Gabe, there could be love.

Why do you and I have to hold these memories?''It gives us wisdom.

It's just that...without the memories, it's all meaningless.

Time goes on, and your life is still there, and you have to live it. After a while you remember the good things more often than the bad. Then, gradually, the empty silent parts of you fill up with sounds of talking and laughter again, and the jagged edges of sadness are softened by memories.

And here in this room, I re-experience the memories again and again it is how wisdom comes and how we shape our future.

Do you know that I no longer see colors?"Jonas's heart broke.

It's hard to leave the only place you've known.

We're all on our own, aren't we? That's what it boils down to. We come into this world on our own- in Hawaii, as I did, or New York, or China, or Africa or Montana- and we leave it in the same way, on our own, wherever we happen to be at the time- in a plane, in our beds, in a car, in a space shuttle, or in a field of flowers. And between those times, we try to connect along the way with others who are also on their own. If we're lucky, we have a mother who reads to us. We have a teacher or two along the way who make us feel special. We have dogs who do the stupid dog tricks we teach them and who lie on our bed when we're not looking, because it smells like us, and so we pretend not to notice the paw prints on the bedspread. We have friends who lend us their favorite books. Maybe we have children, and grandchildren, and funny mailmen and eccentric great-aunts, and uncles who can pull pennies out of their ears. All of them teach us stuff. They teach us about combustion engines and the major products of Bolivia, and what poems are not boring, and how to be kind to each other, and how to laugh, and when the vigil is in our hands, and when we have to make the best of things even though it's hard sometimes. Looking back together, telling our stories to one another, we learn how to be on our own.

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

I'm trying to ruin it!" Will had bellowed back. "So I can figure out how to do it perfectly! How can you learn anything if you won't take risks?

You eat canned tuna fish and you absorb protein. Then, if you're lucky, someone give you Dover Sole and you experience nourishment. It's the same with books.

When you care about someone and give them something special. Something that they treasire. That's a gift.

Teasing's part of the fun that comes before kissing

To his surprise, Jean kissed him. So often in the past, teasing, she had said she would, one day. Now she did, and it was a quick and fragrant touch to his lips that gave him courage and, even before he started out made him yearn to come back home.

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.

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.

I cannot kill someone, he thought.

It was the helplessness that scared the both of us.

It was harder for the ones who were waiting, Annemarie knew. Less danger, perhaps, but more fear.

He wept, and it felt as if the tears were cleansing him, as if his body needed to empty itself.

The whole world had changed. Only the fairy tales remained the same.

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)

You remember that I told you it was safer not to know. But,' he went on, as his hands moved wuth their sure and practiced motion, 'I will tell you just a little, because you were so very brave.'Brave?' Annemarie asked, surprised. 'No, I wasn't. I was very frightened.'You risked your life.'But I didn't even think about that! I was only thinking of-'He interrupted her,smiling. 'That's all that brave means-not thinking about the dangers. Just thinking about what you must do. Of course you were frightened. I was too, today. But you kept your mind on what you had to do. So did I.

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

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 there will be a film. Does The Giver have the same effect when it is presented in a different way: It's hard to know. A book, to me is almost sacrosanct: such an individual and private thing. The reader brings his or her own history and beliefs and concerns, and reads in solitude, creating each scene from his own imagination as he does. There is no fellow ticket-holder in the next seat. The important thing is that another medium--stage, film, music--doesn't obliterate a book. The movie is here now, on a big screen, with stars and costumes and a score. But the book hasn't gone away. It has simply grown up, grown larger, and begun to glisten in a new way.