The Giver Quotes

Quotes 1: "For a contributing citizen to be released from the community was a final decision, a terrible punishment, an overwhelming statement of failure." Chapter 1, pg. 2

Quotes 2: "After Twelve, age isn't important. Most of us even lose track of how old we are as time passes, though information is in the Hall of Open Records... What's important is the preparation for adult life, and the training you'll receive in your Assignment." Chapter 2, pg. 17

Quotes 3: "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 3, pg. 20

Quotes 4: "He liked the feeling of safety here 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." Chapter 4, pg. 30

Quotes 5: "How could someone not fit in? The community was so meticulously ordered, the choices so carefully made." Chapter 6, pg. 48

Quotes 6: "He hunched his shoulders and tried to make himself smaller in the seat. He wanted to disappear, to fade away, not to exist. He didn't dare to turn and find his parents in the crowd. He couldn't bear to see their faces darkened with shame. Jonas bowed his head and searched through his mind. What had he done wrong?" Chapter 7, pg. 58

Quotes 7: "You will be faced, now, with pain of a magnitude that none of us here can comprehend because it is beyond our experience. The Receiver himself was not able to describe it, only to remind us that you would be faced with it, that you would need immense courage." Chapter 8, pg. 63

Quotes 8: "But when he looked out across the crowd, the sea of faces, the thing happened again. The thing that had happened with the apple. They changed. He blinked, and it was gone. His shoulder straightened slightly. Briefly he felt a tiny sliver of sureness for the first time." Chapter 8, pg. 64

Quotes 9: "There was just a moment when things weren't quite the same, weren't quite as they had always been through the long friendship." Chapter 9, pg. 66

Quotes 10: "He was so completely, so thoroughly accustomed to courtesy within the community that the thought of asking another citizen an intimate question, f calling someone's attention to an area of awkwardness, was unnerving." Chapter 9, pg. 69

Quotes 11: "What if others-adults-had, upon becoming Twelves, received in their instructions the same terrifying sentence? What if they had all been instructed: You may lie?" Chapter 9, pg. 71

Quotes 12: "Simply stated, although it's not really simple at all, my job is to transmit to you all the memories I have within me. Memories of the past." Chapter 10, pg. 77

Quotes 13: " Now he became aware of an entirely new sensation: pinpricks? No, because they were soft and without pain. Tiny, cold, featherlike feelings peppered his body and face. He put out his tongue again, and caught one of the dots of cold upon it. It disappeared from his awareness instantly; but he caught another, and another. The sensation made him smile." Chapter 11, pg. 80.

Quotes 14: "He was free to enjoy the breathless glee that overwhelmed him: the speed, the clear cold air, the total silence, the feeling of balance and excitement and peace." Chapter 11, pg. 82

Quotes 15: "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." Chapter 12, pg. 88

Quotes 16: "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." Chapter 12, pg. 95

Quotes 17: "He found that he was often angry...that 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." Chapter 13, pg. 99

Quotes 18: "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...It was a sound of rage and grief and it seemed never to end." Chapter 13, pg. 100

Quotes 19: "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." Chapter 13, pg. 103

Quotes 20: "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 13, pg. 106

Quotes 21: "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...Then, the first wave of pain. He gasped. It was as if a hatchet lay lodged in his leg, slicing through each nerve with a hot blade. In his agony, he perceived the word 'fire' and felt flames licking at the torn bone and flesh." Chapter 14, pg. 109

Quotes 22: "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." Chapter 14, pg. 115

Quotes 23: "Jonas began to remember the wonderful sail that The Giver had given him not long before: a bright, breezy day on a clear turquoise lake, and above him the white sail of the boat billowing as he moved along in the brisk wind." Chapter 14, pg. 116

Quotes 24: "...the half-closed eyes of a boy who seemed not much older than himself. Dirt streaked the boy's face and his matted blond hair. He lay sprawled, his gray uniform glistening with wet, fresh blood. The colors of the carnage were grotesquely bright: the crimson wetness on the rough and dusty fabric, the ripped shred of grass, startlingly green, in the boy's yellow hair." Chapter 15, pg. 119

Quotes 25: "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." Chapter 16, pg. 128

Quotes 26: "His childhood, his friendships, his carefree sense of security-all of these things [seem] to be slipping away. With his new, heightened feelings, he was overwhelmed by sadness at the way the others had laughed and shouted, playing at war. But he knew that they could not understand why, without the memories. He felt such love for Asher and for Fiona. But they could not feel it back, without the memories. And he could not give them those." Chapter 17, pg. 135

Quotes 27: "Memories are forever." Chapter 18, pg. 144

Quotes 28: "Jonas felt a ripping sensation inside himself, the feeling of terrible pain clawing its way forward to emerge in a cry." Chapter 19, pg. 151

Quotes 29: "It's the way they live. It's the life that was created for them. It's the same life that you would have, if you had not been chosen as my successor." Chapter 20, pg. 153

Quotes 30: 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." Chapter 22, pg. 174

Quote 31: "It was not a grasping of thin and burdensome recollection; this was different. This was something that he could keep. It was a memory of his own" Chapter 23, pg. 178

Quotes 32: "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." Chapter 23, pg. 180