The Giver: Quotes
Chapter 1 Quotes
After Twelve, age isn’t important. Most of us even lose track of how old we are as time passes. –Jonas’s father
Chapter 3 Quotes
The apple had changed. Just for an instant. It had changed in mid-air.
No one mentioned such things; it was not a rule, but was considered rude to call attention to things that were unsettling or different about individuals.
Chapter 4 Quotes
It was against the rules for children or adults to look at another’s nakedness; but the rule did not apply to newchildren or the Old… [Jonas] couldn’t see why it was necessary. He liked the feeling of safety her in this warm and quiet room; he liked the expression of trust on the woman’s face as she lay in the water unprotected, exposed, and free.
He just bowed to all of us and then walked, like they all do, through the special door in the Releasing Room. But you should have seen his look. Pure happiness, I’d call it. –Larissa
Chapter 6 Quotes
If you don’t fit in, you can apply for Elsewhere and be released. My mother says that once, about ten years ago, someone applied and was gone the next day. –Asher
Chapter 8 Quotes
“Jonas has not been assigned,” she informed the crowd, and [Jonas’s] heart sank. Then she went on. “Jonas has been selected.”
Chapter 11 Quotes
I have a great honor. So will you. But you will find that that is not the same as power. –The Giver
Chapter 12 Quotes
There was a time, actually—you’ll see this in the memories later—when flesh was many different colors. That was before we went to Sameness. Today flesh is all the same. –The Giver
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. –The Giver
Chapter 13 Quotes
[Jonas] watched them hack the tusks from a motionless elephant on the ground and then haul them away, spattered with blood. He felt himself overwhelmed with a new perception of the color he knew as red.
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.
Sometimes I wish they’d ask for my wisdom more often-there are so many things I could tell them; things I wish they would change. But they don’t want change. Life here is so orderly, so predictable-so painless. It’s what they’ve chosen.
They need a Receiver to contain all that pain. And knowledge.
He wondered what lay in the far distance where he had never gone. The land didn’t end beyond those nearby community. Were there hills Elsewhere? Were there vast wind-torn areas like the place he had seen in memory, the place where the elephants died?
Chapter 14 Quotes
The sled hit a bump in the hill and Jonas is jarred loose and thrown violently into the air. He fell with his leg twisted under him, and could hear the crack of bone. His face scraped along jagged edges of ice… In his agony he perceived the world “fire” and felt flames licking at the torn bone and flesh.
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 was not aware of giving the memory; but suddenly he realized that it was becoming dimmer, that it was sliding through his hand into the being of the newchild.
Chapter 16 Quotes
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.
“I couldn’t quite get the word for the whole feeling of it, the feeling that was so strong in the room.”
“Love,” The Giver told him.
“Do you love me?”
There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then Father gave a little chuckle. “Jonas. You, of all people. Precision of language, please!”
The next morning, for the first time, Jonas did not take his pill. Something within him, something that had grown there through the memories, told him to throw the pill away.
Chapter 17 Quotes
He saw the familiar wide river beside the path differently. He saw all of the light and color and history it contained and carried in its slow-moving water; and he knew that there was an Elsewhere from which it came, and an Elsewhere to which it was going.
He felt such love for Asher and for Fiona. But they could not feel it back, without the memories.
Chapter 18 Quotes
Memories are forever. –The Giver
Chapter 19 Quotes
He killed it! My father killed it! Jonas said to himself.
Chapter 20 Quotes
“Having you here with me over the past year had made me realize that things must change. For years I’ve felt that they should, but it seemed so hopeless. Now for the first time I think there might be a way,” The Giver said slowly.
Chapter 21 Quotes
Though he had never seen one before, he identified it from his fading memories, for The Giver had given them to him often. It was a bird.
Chapter 22 Quotes
If he had stayed in the community, he would not be. It was as simple as that. Once he had yearned for choice. Then, when he has had a choice, he had made the wrong one: the choice to leave. And now he was starving.
He wept because he was afraid now that he could not save Gabriel. He no longer cared about himself.
Chapter 23 Quotes
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.
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