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

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

“...now he saw the familiar wide river beside the path differently. He saw all of the light and color and history it contained and carried in its slow - moving water; and he knew that there was an Elsewhere from which it came, and an Elsewhere to which it was going”

“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.”

“It is very risky. But each time a child opens a book, he pushes open the gate that separates him from Elsewhere.”

“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.”

“You eat canned tuna fish and you absorb protein. Then, if you're lucky, someone give you Dover Sole and you experience nourishment. It's the same with books.”