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.

And it was lonely, to yearn, all alone.

Mama was crying, and the rain made it seem as if the whole world was crying.

It be better, I think, to climb out in search of something, instead of hating, what you're leaving.

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.

So actually, there could be parents-of-the-parents-of-the-parents-of-the parents?

She fell asleep, and it was a sleep as thin as the night clouds, dotted with dreams that came and went like the stars.