Last Updated on June 14, 2023 by Louisa
The Giver is one of my favorite novels. It’s set in a dystopian world of sameness, where everyone looks the same and no one sees in color.
Everyone is given a job when they reach 12, and for Jonas, the job he is given is of the greatest responsibility – he must be the keeper of memory.
As Jonas starts to receive memories from The Giver, he becomes wiser and more knowledgeable about the way the world works. He learns about fairness, love, cruelty, and freedom.
It’s one of the most important books of all time, despite the fact it is a banned book in the US because it contains scenes of euthanasia and suicide.
Although it has somewhat dark moments, its overall message is thought-provoking. And if anything, Lois Lowry successfully makes the reader feel something, be it shock or sadness.
It’s also full of incredible quotes. If you’re looking for The Giver quotes from Lois Lowry, then these are the most inspiring ones from the book…
Related Post: Books Similar to The Giver
The Giver Quotes About Sameness
One of the biggest themes in The Giver is sameness. In this dystopian world, everyone has the same clothes, haircut, and homes and sees only in black and white.
These are the best The Giver quotes about sameness.
“I feel sorry for anyone who is in a place where he feels strange and stupid.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without colour, pain or past.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“Most of the people on the night crew had not even been given spouses because they lacked, somehow, the essential capacity to connect to others, which was required for the creation of a family unit.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“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.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“Even trained for years as they all had been in the precision of language, what words could you use which would give another the experience of sunshine?”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“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.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“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 colour when we relinquished sunshine and did away with a difference. We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“Life here is so orderly, so predictable-so painless. It’s what they’ve chosen.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
The Giver Quotes About Choice
Another major theme in The Giver is choice. As everyone lives in a world of sameness, people are living without choice. Here are some of the best quotes about choice from The Giver.
“Of course they needed to care. It was the meaning of everything.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“I knew that there had been times in the past-terrible times-when people had destroyed others in haste, in fear, and had brought about their own destruction”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“If everything’s the same, then there aren’t any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“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.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“What if they were allowed to choose their own mate? And chose wrong?”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“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.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“And here in this room, I re-experience the memories again and again it is how wisdom comes and how we shape our future.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“When people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong, every single time.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
The Giver Quotes About Pain
As Jonas receives more memories, he starts to learn about pain. Pain is not something that normal folk feel, since they have been rid of memory and choice. These are the best The Giver quotes about pain…
“The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“Jonas felt a ripping sensation inside himself, the feeling of terrible pain clawing its way forward to emerge in a cry.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“You suggested, Jonas, that perhaps she wasn’t brave enough? I don’t know about bravery: what it is, what it means. I do know that I sat here numb with horror. Wretched with helplessness. And I listened as Rosemary told them that she would prefer to inject herself.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“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.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“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.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“They have never known pain, he thought. The realization made him feel desperately lonely.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
The Giver Quotes About Individuality
Jonas has a special job, unlike everyone else in society. Therefore he is alone, or an individual. Here are the best The Giver quotes about individuality…
“No one mentioned such things; it was not a rule, but was considered rude to call attention to things that were unsettling or different about individuals.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“He hunched his shoulders and tried to make himself smaller in the seat. He wanted to disappear, to fade away, not to exist.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“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.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“The man corrected him. “Honor,” he said firmly. “I have great honor. So will you. But you will find that that is not the same as power.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“A book, to me, is almost sacrosanct: such an individual and private thing. The reader brings his or her own history and beliefs and concerns, and reads in solitude, creating each scene from his own imagination as he does. There is no fellow ticket-holder in the next seat.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“He found that he was often angry, now: irrationally angry at his groupmates, that 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.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“There was never any comfortable way to mention or discuss one’s successes without breaking the rule against bragging, even if one didn’t mean to.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“It was as simple as that. Once he had yearned for choice. then, when he had had a choice, he had made the wrong one: the choice to leave. And now he was starving.
Lois Lowry, The Giver
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.”
Short The Giver Quotes
The best quotes are often short and powerful ones. These are my favorite short The Giver quotes.
“We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“If you were to be lost in the river, Jonas, your memories would not be lost with you. Memories are forever.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“It’s the choosing that’s important, isn’t it?”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“It’s just that… without the memories, it’s all meaningless.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“You may lie.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“But there was nothing left to do but continue.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“Frightened meant that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“Precision of language, Jonah.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“It was simply a marking of time with no meaningful changes.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
“They can’t help it. They know nothing.”
Lois Lowry, The Giver
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Final Word on The Giver Quotes
So there you have it, 40 of my favorite and most inspiring quotes from The Giver book by Lois Lowry.
I hope that these book quotes have been thought-provoking to you.
Do you have a favorite quote from this list? Let me know in the comments.
