Lois Lowry Quotes

I'm not terribly conversant with children's literature in general. I tend to read books for adults, being an adult.

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.

That's why they call you Seer. You see more than most.

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've always been interested in medicine and was pleased when my brother became a doctor. But after thinking seriously about that field, I realized that what intrigued me was not the science, not the chemistry or biology of medicine, but the narrative - the story of each patient, each illness.

I feel sorry for anyone who is in a place where he feels strange and stupid.

We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.

I don't for one second think about the possibility of censorship when I am writing a new book. I know I am a person who cares about kids and who cares about truth and I am guided by my own instincts, and trust them.

It is much easier to be brave if you do not know everything.

I write books because I have always been fascinated by stories and language, and because I love thinking about what makes people tick. Writing a story... 'The Giver' or any other... is simply an exploration of the nature of behavior: why people do what they do, how it affects others, how we change and grow, and what decisions we make along the way.

Of course they needed to care. It was the meaning of everything.

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

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.

We live in times that are in many ways ambiguous. Maybe that's why kids want precision in what they read - they don't like that moral ambiguity.

- My instructors in science and technology have taught us about how the brain works. It's full of electrical impulses. It's like a computer. If you stimulate one part of the brain with an electrode, it... - They know nothing.

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

The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.

Our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness. Before my time, before the previous time, back and back and back. We relinquished color when we relinquished sunshine and did away with difference. We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.

Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps the singing bird will come.

I have been fortunate. I have done so many things and enjoyed so many things and had such a great life, not to imply that it is ending, but that there aren't many things that I feel I have left undone.

The mind can’t explain it, and you can’t make it go away. It’s called love.

But then everyone would be burdened and pained. They don't want that. And that's the real reason The Receiver is so vital to them, and so honored. They selected me--and you-to lift that burden from themselves.

I don't read young adult or children's books, now that my grandchildren are beyond the age of my reading to them. I read reviews, and so I'm aware of what's out there. But I tend not to read the books.

I think when you've had success, publishers and reviewers and readers are willing to let you try something new if you've already proven yourself. They're excited about what you're doing, you have people interested in it, and actually waiting for it. It's empowering.

I often compare myself as a kid to my own grandchildren, who are around 11 and 14 now. That's the age kids usually read my book. And I remember myself, we'd gone through a world war. My father was an army officer so I was aware of what was going on. But I wasn't bombarded with images of catastrophe like many kids are today.

They were satisfied with their lives which had none of the vibrance his own was taking on. And he was angry at himself, that he could not change that for them.

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.

Ellen had said that her mother was afraid of the ocean, that it was too cold and too big. The sky was, too, thought Annemarie. The whole world was: too cold, too big. And too cruel.

Reading is the most important way to prepare for life.

You will be faced, now, with pain of a magnitude that none of us here can comprehend because it is beyond our experience. The Receiver himself was not able to describe it, only to remind us that you would be faced with it, that you would need immense courage.

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

There was just a moment when things weren't quite the same, weren't quite as they had always been through the long friendship

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

The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without colour, pain or past.

The community of the Giver had achieved at such great price. A community without danger or pain. But also, a community without music, color or art. And books.

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.

She was the only doctor's wife in Branford, Maine, who hung her wash on an outdoor clothesline instead of putting it through a dryer, because she liked to look out the window and see the clothes blowing in the wind. She had been especially delighted, one day, when one sleeve of the top of her husband's pajamas, prodded by the stiff breeze off the bay, reached over and grabbed her nightgown around the waist.

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 was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened.

I was a sidelines child: never class president, never team captain, never the one with the most valentines in my box.

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.

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.

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.

But there's a whole world waiting, still, and there are good things in it.

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

Take pride in your pain; you are stronger than those who have none

Genius disregards the boundaries of propriety. Genius is permitted to shout if shouting is productive.

Because of fear, they made shelter and found food and grew things. For the same reason, weapons were stored, waiting.