There is something about that moment, when literature becomes accessible, and a door of the world opens.

I don't know what you mean when you say 'the whole world' or 'generations before him.'I thought there was only us. I thought there was only now.

And here in this room, I re-experience the memories again and again it is how wisdom comes and how we shape our future.

I think I've written 40 books, and none of them have been heavy on action. I'm an introspective person.

The man that I named the Giver passed along to the boy knowledge, history, memories, color, pain, laughter, love, and truth. Every time you place a book in the hands of a child, you do the same thing. It is very risky. But each time a child opens a book, he pushes open the gate that separates him from Elsewhere. It gives him choices. It gives him freedom. Those are magnificent, wonderfully unsafe things. [from her Newberry Award acceptance speech]

It's a funny thing about names, how they become a part of someone.

Once she read a book but found it distasteful because it contained adjectives.