Lowry Quotes & Sayings

And the earth itself still turning on its axis and revolving around that sun, the sun revolving around the luminous wheel of this galaxy, the countless unmeasured jewelled wheels of countless unmeasured galaxies, turning, turning, majestically, into infinity, into eternity, through all of which all life ran on - all this, long after she herself was dead, men would still be reading in the night sky, and as the earth turned through those distant seasons, and they watched the constellations still rising, culminating, setting, to rise again - Aries, Taurus, Gemini, the Crab, Leo, Virgo, the Scales and the Scorpion, Capricorn the Sea-goat and Aquarius the Water Bearer, Pisces, and once more, triumphantly, Aries! - would they not, too, still be asking the hopeless eternal question: to what end? What force drives this sublime celestial machinery? — Malcolm Lowry

But there was nothing left to do but continue — Lois Lowry

She was willing to give you everything she had. And you took it from her. You took her youth, and her beauty, and her energy and her health-" For a moment, think of his mother, Gabe couldn't continue speaking. He fell silent and choked back tears. Then he took a deep breath and went on, "- and it didn't matter. We found each other. None of it mattered but that. You won't ever know what that's like, to love someone. In a way, I pity you. But I hope you starve. — Lois Lowry

Then, in the same way that his own dwelling slipped away behind him as he rounded a corner on his bicycle, the dream slipped away from his thoughts. Very briefly, a little guiltily, he tried to grasp it back. But the feelings had disappeared. The Stirrings were gone. — Lois Lowry

I like prefaces. I read them. Sometimes I do not read any further. — Malcolm Lowry

Over and over. They be making me remember everythings. Me old songs, they just be natural. But now they be stuffing new things into me and this poor head hurts horrid. — Lois Lowry

Do you love me?"
There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then Father gave a little chuckle. "Jonas. You, of all people. Precision of language, please!"
"What do you mean?" Jonas asked. Amusement was not at all what he had anticipated.
"Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it's become almost obsolete," his mother explained carefully.
Jonas stared at them. Meaningless? He had never before felt anything as meaningful as the memory.
"And of course our community can't function smoothly if people don't use precise language. You could ask, 'Do you enjoy me?' The answer is 'Yes,'" his mother said.
"Or," his father suggested, "'Do you take pride in my accomplishments?' And the answer is wholeheartedly 'Yes.'"
"Do you understand why it's inappropriate to use a word like 'love'?" Mother asked.
Jonas nodded. "Yes, thank you, I do," he replied slowly.
It was his first lie to his parents. — Lois Lowry

I think of every book as a single entity, and some have later gone on to become a series, often at the request of readers. — Lois Lowry

Always better, less rude, to talk about things that were the same. — Lois Lowry

What I have absolutely no sympathy with is the legislator, the man who seeks, for his own profit, to exploit the weaknesses of those who are unable to help themselves and then to fasten some moral superscription upon it. This I loathe so much that I cannot conceivably explain how much it is. — Malcolm Lowry

Dying is a very solitary thing. The only thing we can do it be there when she wants us there. — Lois Lowry

Some of those who had been among the most industrious, the kindest, and the most stalwart citizens of Village now went to the platform and shouted their wish that the border be closed so that 'we' (Matty shuddered at the use of 'we') would not have to share the resources anymore.
'We need all the fish for ourselves.
Our school is not big enough to teach their children, too; only our own.
They can't even speak right.
We can't understand them.
They have too many needs.
We don't want to tale care of them.'
And finally: 'We've done it long enough. — Lois Lowry

I just feel like there hasn't been enough time away from all this other stuff and into this new world or sort of big world that it hasn't worn off yet. — Mike Lowry

After wolf number 10, the father of the first group of pups born in the park, was killed by a local hunter after wandering south of park boundaries, program officials rounded up the mother and the helpless pups, put them back into the acclimation pen, and provided them with food for several months. Even when the pups got a bit older, program managers feared that the mother would have a hard time taking care of them by herself when they were released. Then, on the day they were to be released, in an event that no biologist has yet been able to explain, a bachelor wolf living miles away in another part of the park showed up outside the pen, just in time to form a new family unit. — William R. Lowry

The whole world had changed. Only the fairy tales remained the same. And they lived happily ever after, — Lois Lowry

Maybe someday, if I succeed at something, I'll stop saying, "It isn't fair" about everything else. — Lois Lowry

You don't need brains to be a painter, just feelings. — L. S. Lowry

And they are beginning to realize that the world they live in is a place where the right thing is often hard, sometimes dangerous, and frequently unpopular. — Lois Lowry

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. — Lois Lowry

There is pain in being a woman, yes, but there is pride in it, too. — Mary Pauline Lowry

Bad, or good, as it happens to be, that is what it is to exist! ... It is as though I have been silent and fuddled with sleep all my life. In spite of all, I know now that at least it is better to go always towards the summer, towards those burning seas of light; to sit at night in the forecastle lost in an unfamiliar dream, when the spirit becomes filled with stars, instead of wounds, and good and compassionate and tender. To sail into an unknown spring, or receive one's baptism on storm's promontory, where the solitary albatross heels over in the gale, and at last come to land. To know the earth under one's foot and go, in wild delight, ways where there is water. — Malcolm Lowry

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

I'm not terribly conversant with children's literature in general. I tend to read books for adults, being an adult. — Lois Lowry

No, my secrets are of the grave and must be kept. And this is how I sometimes think of myself, as a great explorer who has discovered some extraordinary land from which he can never return to give his knowledge to the world: but the name of this land is hell. — Malcolm Lowry

Then I went home to continue my life, which had changed a little, as lives do every day, inching by microspecks forward toward whatever surprises are coming next. — Lois Lowry

And I could test myself - my own courage - with it, too, because when the doors at either end of the secret staircase were closed, it was impenetrably dark. I hid in the staircase, shivering with terror, telling the narrative: The little girl was in a dark, dark place but she was very brave ... Sometimes the door at the bottom opened, and a wedge of light sliced up the stairs; a maid, her arms filled with folded laundry, would find me and ask in amazement what I was doing there.
And though I answered lightheartedly that I was playing, the truth is that I was not entirely certain what I was doing there, crouched and frightened in the darkness. Only now, sixty years later, do I see that I was arming myself, rehearsing panic, loss, and helplessness; assessing my own cowardice and courage, and and the same time reassuring myself that the door would always open, that the light would always find its way in. — Lois Lowry

And in a democracy, when we say we're mad at what's going on, what we need to be saying is we're mad at ourselves. — Mike Lowry

The end game is you change that law to making that law better, whichever law you're talking about. — Mike Lowry

again. "When we were Sixes, we went and shared a whole school day with a group of Sixes in their community." "How did you feel when you were there?" Lily frowned. "I felt strange. Because their methods were different. They were learning usages that my group hadn't learned yet, so we felt stupid." Father was listening with interest. "I'm thinking, Lily," he said, "about the boy who didn't obey the rules today. Do you think it's possible that he felt strange and stupid, being in a new place with rules that he didn't know about?" Lily pondered that. "Yes," she said, finally. — Lois Lowry

When you're younger, you think of your age in fractions. 4 1/2, 5 1/2. You don't hear 36 1/2. You become 2, you turn 40, you reach 50, you make it to 60. By now you're going so fast you hit 70! — Mark Lowry

'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.' — Lois Lowry

Sometimes he awoke with a feeling of fragments afloat in his sleep, but he couldn't seem to grasp them and put them together into something worthy of telling at the ritual. — Lois Lowry

When people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong, every single time. — Lois Lowry

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 Consul looked at the sun. But he had lost the sun: it was not his sun. Like the truth, it was well-nigh impossible to face; he did not want to go anywhere near it, least of all, sit in its light, facing it. — Malcolm Lowry

You have the colors," The Giver told him. "And you have the courage. I will help you to have the strength. — Lois Lowry

You can say that Wayne Coyne sounds like Neil Young. — Mike Lowry

I said it because it's true. It's the way — Lois Lowry

Message to Obama: Fighting the Clinton machine won't be as easy as picking up favorable press clips. — Rich Lowry

Journalism equals intellectual male prostitution of speech and writing, — Malcolm Lowry

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. — Lois Lowry

We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others. — Lois Lowry

There's no wobble in Bush. If anything, the opposite. Right after hello, the next words out of his mouth are: I've never been more convinced that the decisions I made are the right decisions. — Rich Lowry

Follow the dreams of others and you will receive a paycheck. Follow your own dreams and you will never check your pay. — Vincent Lowry

We wanted to sit down and conceptually work out songs. — Mike Lowry

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. — Lois Lowry

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

A life lived following one's dreams and passions is the purest form of existence. It is the only way to truly understand the music of the universe. — Vincent Lowry

There is something about that moment, when literature becomes accessible, and a door of the world opens. — Lois Lowry

Writing:
It starts at the keyboard,
and it ends at the far corners of the universe.
Paako — Vincent Lowry

As female hormones decrease, they're replaced with an overwhelming urge to grow delphinium. — Lois Lowry

It's hard to leave the only place you've known. — Lois Lowry

I have learned over the course of my many years that it is a bad idea, usually, to investigate piteous weeping but always a fine thing to look into a giggle. — Lois Lowry

Try persuading the world not to cut its throat for half a decade or more ... and it'll begin to dawn on you that even your behavior's part of its plan. — Malcolm Lowry

By 1971, a quarter of the white students were in private schools, the white families paying tuition many could scarcely afford. Mothers went back to work to help cover tuition, "spent all their savings and forfeited luxuries and necessities in life," some splitting their children up and enduring the "expense and inconvenience of transporting the children long distances to and from school," according to the Mississippi-born scholar Mark Lowry, to avoid having their children sit in the same classroom with black children. In — Isabel Wilkerson

If you think the country is a bastion only of nasty tendencies and racism and oppression, that is anti-American. — Rich Lowry

If somebody comes to a neighborhood coffee hour, or goes to a discussion group, and they have a discussion, I do think that people really walk away with a real understanding of the issues. — Mike Lowry

I don't read young adult or children's books, now that my grandchildren are beyond the age of my reading to them. I read reviews, and so I'm aware of what's out there. But I tend not to read the books. — Lois Lowry

If everyting's the same, then there aren't any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!" (Jonas)
"It's the choosing that's imortant, isn't it?" The Giver asked him. — Lois Lowry

tunic back on. "Goodbye, sir," he said. "Thank you for my — Lois Lowry

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. — Lois Lowry

Things seem more when you're little. They seem bigger, and distances seem farther. — Lois Lowry

When I should have been producing obscure volumes of verse entitled the Triumph of Humpty Dumpty or the Nose with the Luminous Dong! Or at best, like Clare, "weaving fearful vision" ... A frustrated poet in every man. Though it is perhaps a good idea under the circumstances to pretend at least to be proceeding with one's great work on "Secret Knowledge," then one can always say when it never comes out that the title explains the deficiency. — Malcolm Lowry

You will fail. Then they will kill you. - Vandara to Kira, following Kira's trial. — Lois Lowry

How could you describe a hill and snow to someone who had never felt height or wind or that feathery, magical cold? — Lois Lowry

It was terrifying, almost unbelievable, the casualness of the cruelty. — Lois Lowry

My job is to transmit to you all the memories I have within me. Memories of the past. — Lois Lowry

Many of the books I loved as a kid, that even my mother read as a child, are very slow going. Today's children are not as patient. The best example of this is 'The Secret Garden,' which I adored as a child. — Lois Lowry

He floated above, weightless, watching his human self labor and writhe. He gave himself to it willingly, traded himself for all that he loved and valued, and felt free. — Lois Lowry

The class stared at the new girl with admiration. They had never met anyone like Gooney Bird Greene. She was a good student. She sat down at the desk Mrs. Pidgeon provided, right smack in the middle of everything, and began doing second grade spelling. — Lois Lowry

Actually," the chief guardian said in a calm voice, "you have no rights at all. But I am going to tell you the decision so that there will be no misunderstanding. "The orphan girl Kira will stay. She will have a new role." He gestured toward the Singer's robe, still spread out on the table. "Kira," he said, looking at her, "you will continue your mother's work. You will go beyond her work, actually, since your skill is far greater than hers was. First, you will repair the robe, as your mother always did. Next, you will restore it. Then your true work will begin. You will complete the robe. — Lois Lowry

Shall we gather at the river,
Where bright angel feet have trod;
With its crystal tide for ever,
Flowing by the throne of God? — Robert Lowry

To say nothing of what you lose, lose, lose, are losing, man. You fool, you stupid fool ... You've even been insulated from the responsibility of genuine suffering ... Even the suffering you do endure is largely unnecessary. Actually spurious. It lacks the very basis you require of it for its tragic nature. You deceive yourself. — Malcolm Lowry

Believing that our greatest need is for the general public to be able to get better information, to have an opportunity to learn better the real issues of the less fortunate, we centered the activities of the Fairness Project on that. — Mike Lowry

That was what it meant to be a woman: to live in an unbearable agony hidden for a time behind smoke and mirrors. — Mary Pauline Lowry

She felt a small shudder of fear. Fear was always a part of life for the people. Because of fear, they made shelter and found food and grew things. For the same reason, weapons were stored, waiting. There was fear of cold, of sickness and hunger. There was fear of beasts. — Lois Lowry

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

The will of man is unconquerable. Even God cannot conquer it. — Malcolm Lowry

It is much easier to be brave if you do not know everything. — Lois Lowry

Go, " he said. "This is your journey, your battle. Be brave. Find your gift. Use it to save what you love. — Lois Lowry

Somehow the first little Caleb had wandered away unnoticed, — Lois Lowry

Outside, she knew, the sky was speckled with stars. How could anyone number them one by one, as the psalm said? There were too many. The sky was too big. — Lois Lowry

It's a funny thing about names, how they become a part of someone. — Lois Lowry

It was awesome because we were doing Ramones songs. — Mike Lowry

Maybe it was clear that he cared about me, that he couldn't handle another risk, but in that moment the only thing that made sense was my anger. I might have even hated him for what he said about Grace, because hating him was so much easier than understanding him. He obviously felt the same way. — Lisa Roecker

No one else seemed to feel this kind of passionate attachment to other humans. Not to a newchild, not to a spouse, or a coworker, or friend. She had not felt it toward her own parents or brother. But now, toward this wobbly, drooling toddler - — Lois Lowry

We thank you for your childhood. — Lois Lowry

All of them, you see, misfits, all good for nothing, cowards, baboons, meek wolves, parasites, every man jack of them, people afraid to face their own responsibilities, fight their own fight, ready to go anywhere, as Tolstoy well perceived - — Malcolm Lowry

No way you're calling Ben. We already have a plan. Were going to his house, and I'm going to ring the doorbell with some fake lab work for Chemistry, and then Taylor is going to set off his car alarm while I year through his room looking for evidence."
"Wow. Great plan, Kate. Just out of curiosity, what exactly are you planning on doing when he comes back to his room to find you knee-deep in his secret Brotherhood bullshit?" Liam spat his words at me like nails.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Do you have a better idea? Ooh, I know. Maybe you could call you're brother and have him light his garage on fire or something. — Lisa Roecker

Arizona seeks only to enforce the nominal immigration policy of the United States. Perhaps the federal government should try it sometime. — Rich Lowry

But there was no mistaking, even in the uncertain light, the hand, half crabbed, half generous, and wholly drunken, of the Consul himself, the Greek e's, flying buttresses of d's, the t's like lonely wayside crosses save where they crucified an entire word, the words themselves slanting steeply downhill, though the individual characters seemed as if resisting the descent, braced, climbing the other way. — Malcolm Lowry

We have an electronic vein we have tapped and applied it to a rock setting like tons of bands out there. — Mike Lowry

Only against death does man cry out in vain. — Malcolm Lowry

The children all received their bicycles at Nine; they were not allowed to ride bicycles before then. — Lois Lowry

Time goes on, and your life is still there, and you have to live it. After a while you remember the good things more often than the bad. Then, gradually, the empty silent parts of you fill up with sounds of talking and laughter again, and the jagged edges of sadness are softened by memories. — Lois Lowry

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. — Lois Lowry

So, Henrik, is the weather good for fishing?" Papa asked cheerfully, and listened briefly. Then he continued, "I'm sending Inge to you today with the children, and she will be bringing you a carton of cigarettes. "Yes, just one," he said, after a moment. Annemarie couldn't hear Uncle Henrik's words. "But there are a lot of cigarettes available in Copenhagen now, if you know where to look," he went on, "and so there will be others coming to you as well, I'm sure." But it wasn't true. Annemarie was quite certain it wasn't true. Cigarettes were the thing that Papa missed, the way Mama missed coffee. He complained often - he had complained only yesterday - that there were no cigarettes in the stores. — Lois Lowry

And it was lonely, to yearn, all alone. — Lois Lowry

The history of Denmark has much to teach us all. — Lois Lowry

I have resisted temptation for two and a half minutes at least: my redemption is sure. — Malcolm Lowry