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.

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.

Making lists of reasons was sometimes a good way to figure things out.

The whole world had changed. Only the fairy tales remained the same. "And they lived happily ever after.

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 they are beginning to realize that the world they live in is a place where the right thing is often hard, sometimes dangerous, and frequently unpopular.

I tend not to think about audience when I'm writing. Many people who read "The Giver" now have their own kids who are reading it. Even from the beginning, the book attracted an audience beyond a child audience.