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" In my writing, I focus lenses. I'm almost always seeing when I am writing. "

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" 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. "

" In 1952, when I was 15 and living on Governors Island, which was then First Army Headquarters, I encountered the newly-published 'The Catcher in the Rye.' Of course, that book became the iconic anti-establishment novel for my generation. "

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

" There will always be a place for bunnies to talk in rhyme, but that's not what I do. "

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

" 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. "

" What comes to me always is a character, a scene, a moment. That's going to be the beginning. Then, as I write, I begin to perceive an ending. I begin to see a destination, although sometimes that changes. And then, of course, there's the whole middle section looming. "

" 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. "

" One hopes that with a book or movie, the reader or the audience will emerge from it thinking. That's the most you can hope for: that you've raised questions that will be there for the audience to think about later. "

" 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. "

" Kids have no sense of appropriateness. They can ask me whatever they want. You do develop a sense of intimacy with readers, and they tell you things about themselves. During a school year, I'll get e-mails asking about the books. I'll give them information, but I won't do their homework for them. "

" I've always been interested in medicine and was pleased when my brother became a doctor. But after thinking seriously about that field, I realized that what intrigued me was not the science, not the chemistry or biology of medicine, but the narrative - the story of each patient, each illness. "

" 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. "

" Nowadays it seems as though people sit down to write what they know is going to be a trilogy. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" When I was a kid in the '50s, during the Eisenhower years, everything seemed to be working fine. I don't recall as a teenager ever worrying about the state of the future world. "

" I never, as a reader, have been particularly interested in dystopian literature or science fiction or, in fact, fantasy. "

" 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. "

" Often in the past, there have been authors that were deeply disappointed in their adaptation, but that's because they haven't accepted the fact that a movie is a different thing, and it can't possibly be the same as the book. "

" When I create characters, I create a world to inhabit and they begin to feel very real for me. I don't belong in a psych ward, I don't think, but they become very real, like my own family, and then I have to say goodbye, close the door, and work on other things. "

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

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

" Most people remember being 4 objectively, as if they're seeing a movie of a 4-year-old. But me, if you ask me to think about when I'm 4, I can feel myself being 4, and I am there, looking out through my 4-year-old eyes. "

" If we as writers could predict what readers grab on to, we would write it. "

" Oddly, the military world is one of great sameness. There is an orderly quality to life on an army base, and even the children of the military are brought up with that sense of order and sameness. "

" 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. "