Kids deserve the right to think that they can change the world.

And it was lonely, to yearn, all alone.

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.

So many of my books, I don't want to say they have messages, but they have important things to say.

People in the know say The Giver was the first young adult dystopian novel.

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.

There will always be a place for bunnies to talk in rhyme, but that's not what I do.