30+ of the best quotes from "The Giver"

The Giver is a young adult novel that takes place in a future where society is tightly controlled and sameness is highly valued. In the world created by author Lois Lowry, people no longer perceive colors or feel strong emotions, and memories of the past relating to subjects such as pain and war no longer exist in the population. The story is told from the perspective of Jonas, a young boy who has been given the role of Receiver of Memory. Working with a man known as The Giver, Jonas is suddenly exposed to emotions and concepts he has never experienced, including the feeling of love. These events set Jonas's life on a wholly unexpected path as he begins to understand the truth about what he has been taught to believe—and what he has been missing.

Here are 30+ of the best quotes from The Giver, offering a thought-provoking exploration of its key themes.

The best quotes from The Giver on freedom and choice

1. "If everything's the same, then there aren't any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!"

2. "It's the choosing that's important, isn't it?"

3. "What if they were allowed to choose their own mate? And chose wrong?"

4. "Always better, less rude, to talk about things that were the same."

5. “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.”

6. "Jonas tried to be brave. He remembered that the Chief Elder had said he was brave."

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

8. "I have great honor. So will you. But you will find that that is not the same as power."

The best quotes from The Giver on loneliness and isolation

1. "They have never known pain, he thought. The realization made him feel desperately lonely."

2. "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."

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

4. "After Twelve, age isn't important. Most of us even lose track of how old we are as time passes."

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

The best quotes from The Giver on memory and emotion

1. "He knew that there was no quick comfort for emotions like those. They were deeper and they did not need to be told. They were felt."

2. "He was free to enjoy the breathless glee that overwhelmed him: the speed, the clear cold air, the total silence, the feeling of balance and excitement and peace."

3. "If you were to be lost in the river, Jonas, your memories would not be lost with you. Memories are forever."

4. "I'm going to give you the memory of a rainbow."

5. "He felt such love for Asher and for Fiona. But they could not feel it back, without the memories. And he could not give them those."

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

The best quotes from The Giver on language and experience

1. "Even trained for years as they all had been in precision of language, what words could you use which would give another the experience of sunshine?"

2. “How could you describe a hill and snow to someone who had never felt height or wind or that feathery, magical cold?"

3. "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."

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

5. "Each time a child opens a book, he pushes open the gate that separates him from Elsewhere."

The best quotes from The Giver on wonder and worries

1. "He felt himself overwhelmed with a new perception of the color he knew as red."

2. "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."

3. "He wondered what lay in the future. Hunger. Struggle. Terror."

4. "I knew that there had been times in the past–terrible times people had destroyed others in haste, in fear, and had brought about their own destruction."

5. “He hunched his shoulders and tried to make himself smaller in the seat. He wanted to disappear, to fade away, not to exist.”

6. "I can see that it was a dangerous way to live."

7. “Today is declared an unscheduled holiday.”