Gathering Blue' was a separate book. I wanted to explore what a society might become after a catastrophic world event. Only at the end did I realize I could make it connect to 'The Giver.

-a whole world can lie before someone, if love is there when one wakes.

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

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

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

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

The writer after all is only half the book, the other half is the reader.

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

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.

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

He wept, and it felt as if the tears were cleansing him, as if his body needed to empty itself.

A beautiful word of love radiates joy for ever.

I'm being uprooted, " Dino said. "You're being transplanted, " Viv replied, "and to a better home.

For whatever time I have to live, I intend to enjoy myself." - Midge Rylander in Eighteen Months To Live.

Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.

I was tired of admiring your legs from a distance.

Non violence means people in action. People have to understand that with non-violence goes a hell of a lot of organization.

Minds are the real estate of the 21st century.

Ah, to be a bird. To fly the skies, sing my song, and best of all occasionally peck someone's eyes out.

By using novels, I show ordinary kids confronting and overcoming great odds.

Some people say their life is full of darkness and I wonder why they don't just try and switch the lights on.