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" Because I have two houses, I invariably get immersed in a book and then discover it's at the other house. "

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" I tend not to think about audience when I'm writing. Many people who read 'The Giver' now have their own kids who are reading it. Even from the beginning, the book attracted an audience beyond a child audience. "

" The grand surprise has really been the fact that being an author, which to me had always implied being a private person, actually requires you to be a public person as well, and those are two separate entities to me. "

" I don't set out to transmit a message. I don't write with a political point of view. There are no religious overtones. Looking back at my books, I can say, 'Oh, yes, it is there.' But it's not in my mind when I write. "

" I always set out to tell a good story, to create a character that young people can relate to, place them in a situation that will be interesting, intriguing, eventually suspenseful. But what I find is that after I do that, then there are themes that emerge, which teachers can then use to provoke discussion and debate. "

" People are starting to refer to 'The Giver' as a classic, but I don't know how that is defined. But if it means that 10, 20, 50 years from now kids will still be reading it, that is kind of awe-inspiring. "

" I often compare myself as a kid to my own grandchildren, who are around 11 and 14 now. That's the age kids usually read my book. And I remember myself; we'd gone through a world war. My father was an army officer so I was aware of what was going on. But I wasn't bombarded with images of catastrophe like many kids are today. "

" I was a sidelines child: never class president, never team captain, never the one with the most valentines in my box. "

" My mind is always on whatever next project I'm working on. "

" I think 'The Giver' is such a moral book, so filled with important truths, that I couldn't believe anyone would want to suppress it, to keep it from kids. "

" Early on I came to realize something, and it came from the mail I received from kids. That is, kids at that pivotal age, 12, 13 or 14, they're still deeply affected by what they read, some are changed by what they read, books can change the way they feel about the world in general. I don't think that's true of adults as much. "

" I was fortunate to live for 3 years in another country, and although we lived in an American compound, still as a young adolescent I did venture into the world of the Japanese with great interest and enjoyment. But many Americans never left that safe and familiar life among their own people. "

" I majored in English in college, so I read the classic dystopian novels like '1984' and 'Brave New World.' "

" I've always been fascinated by memory and dreams because they are both completely our own. No one else has the same memories. No one has the same dreams. "

" When I wrote 'The Giver,' it contained no so-called 'bad words.' It was set, after all, in a mythical, futuristic, and Utopian society. Not only was there no poverty, divorce, racism, sexism, pollution, or violence in the world of 'The Giver'; there was also careful attention paid to language: to its fluency, precision, and power. "

" I have been fortunate. I have done so many things and enjoyed so many things and had such a great life, not to imply that it is ending, but that there aren't many things that I feel I have left undone. "

" I don't for one second think about the possibility of censorship when I am writing a new book. I know I am a person who cares about kids and who cares about truth and I am guided by my own instincts, and trust them. "

" Pretending that there are no choices to be made - reading only books, for example, which are cheery and safe and nice - is a prescription for disaster for the young. "

" There are those, I think, who are attracted to the glitz of celebrity life. I am not one of them. "

" 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. "

" When I moved from Cambridge, I donated all my fiction. I carefully cut out pages the authors had autographed for me. I didn't want those autographed books showing up on eBay. "

" The fact that I lost my son permeates my being. "

" Writing is self employment, so you can make your own schedule. "

" This may sound strange, but at a very early age, at around 3, I was aware that I was smarter than the other kids. "

" I'm a writer; I like to retain subtlety and nuance. "

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

Change The World

" I think I've written 40 books, and none of them have been heavy on action. I'm an introspective person. "

" I think teens are drawn to these speculative books that portray what might happen and what could happen. "

" People can lie in letters, but they tend not to. They certainly lie in memoirs. "

" I turn to books for a feeling of companionship: for somebody knowing what I have known. "

" If somebody takes the time, a: to read a book that I have written, and then to b: care about it enough to write me and ask questions, surely I owe them a response. "