“I felt sad today,” he had heard his mother say, and they had comforted her. But now Jonas had experienced real sadness. He had felt grief. He knew that there was no quick comfort for emotions like those.

Now it was ominous. It meant, he knew, that nothing could be changed.

“But there are two of us now,” Jonas said eagerly. “Together we can think of something!” The Giver watched him with a wry smile.

He found that he was often angry, now: irrationally angry at his groupmates, that they were satisfied with their lives which had none of the vibrance his own was taking on. And he was angry at himself, that he could not change that for them.

They have never known pain, he thought.

We don’t dare to let people make choices of their own.” “Not safe?” The Giver suggested.

“If everything’s the same, then there aren’t any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things! A blue tunic, or a red one?”

“It was so—oh, I wish language were more precise! The red was so beautiful!”

But the reason for precision of language was to ensure that unintentional lies were never uttered.