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.

I believe without a single shadow of a doubt that it is necessary for young people to learn to make choices. Learning to make right choices is the only way they will survive in an increasingly frightening world.

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

Submitting to censorship is to enter the seductive world of 'The Giver': the world where there are no bad words and no bad deeds. But it is also the world where choice has been taken away and reality distorted. And that is the most dangerous world of all.

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

If everyting's the same, then there aren't any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!" (Jonas) "It's the choosing that's imortant, isn't it?" The Giver asked him.

I have learned over the course of my many years that it is a bad idea, usually, to investigate piteous weeping but always a fine thing to look into a giggle.