THE GIVER - LOIS LOWRY

The Giver - Pg 174

   Once he had yearned for choice. Then, when he had a choice, he had made the wrong one: the choice to leave. And now he was starving.   But if he had stayed...   His thoughts continued. If he had stayed, he would have starved in other ways. He would have lived a life hungry for feelings, for color, for love.   And Gabriel? For Gabriel there would have been no life at all. So there had not really been a choice. 

The Giver - Pg 164

He felt a very deep sadness that he had left his closest friend behind. He knew that in the danger of his escape he must be absolutely silent; but with his heart and mind, he called back and hoped that with his capacity for hearing-beyond, The Giver would know that Jonas had said goodbye. 

The Giver - Pg 127

"Do you love me?"   There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then Father gave a little chuckle. "Jonas. You, of all people. Precision of language, please!"   "What do you mean?" Jonas asked. Amusement was not at all what he had anticipated.   "Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it's become almost obsolete," his mother explained carefully.   Jonas stared at them. Meaningless? He had never before felt anything as meaningful as the memory.    "And of course our community can't function smoothly if people don't use precise language. You could ask, 'Do you enjoy me?' The answer is 'Yes,'" his mother said.   "Or," his father suggested, "'Do you take pride in my accomplishments?' And the answer is wholeheartedly 'Yes.'"   "Do you understand why it's inappropriate to use a word like 'love'?" Mother asked.   Jonas nodded. "Yes, thank you, I do," he replied slowly.   It was his first lie to his parents. 

The Giver - Pg 126

"Well," he said finally, grasping for an explanation, "they had fire right there in that room. There was a fire burning in the fireplace. And there were candles on a table. I can certainly see why those things were outlawed.

"Still," he said slowly, almost to himself, "I did like the light they made. And the warmth." 

The Giver - Pg 122

He had walked through woods, and sat at night beside a campfire. Although he had through the memories learned about the pain of loss and loneliness, now he gained, too, an understanding of solitude and its joy. 

The Giver - Pg 121

Jonas did not want to go back. He didn't want the memories, didn't want the honor, didn't want the wisdom, didn't want the pain. He wanted his childhood again, his scraped knees and ball games. He sat in his dwelling alone, watching through the window, seeing children at play, citizens bicycling home from uneventful days at work, ordinary lives free of anguish because he had been selected, as others before him had, to bear their burden.

But the choice was not his. He returned each day to the Annex room. 

 

The Giver - Pg 119

The colors of the carnage were grotesquely bright: the crimson wetness on the rough and dusty fabric, the ripped shreds of grass, startlingly green, in the boy's yellow hair.

The Giver - Pg 83

The old man laughed. "All I gave you was one ride, on one sled, in one snow, on one hill. I have a whole world of them in my memory. I could give them to you one by one, a thousand times, and there would still be more." 

The Giver - Pg 64

"I don't understand it yet. I don't know what it is. But sometimes I see something. And maybe it's beyond."

The Giver - Pg 60

Earlier that day, dressing in his own dwelling, he had practiced the kind of jaunty, self-assured walk that he hoped he could make to the stage when his turn came. All of that was forgotten now. he simply willed himself to stand, to move his feet that felt weighted and clumsy, to go forward, up the steps and across the platform until he stood at her side. 

The Giver - Pg 59

Jonas moved his hands together, clapping, but it was an automatic, meaningless gesture that he wasn't even aware of. His mind had shut out all of the earlier emotions: the anticipation, excitement, pride, and even the happy kinship with his friends. Now he felt only humiliation and terror. 

The Giver - Pg 6

"I feel a little sorry for him," Jonas said, "even though I don't even know him. i feel sorry for anyone who is in a place where he feels strange and stupid."