Quotes About Compassion

One can scarcely conceive the full horror of it unless one is a parent who takes a close look at his children and then asks himself how he would feel if a group of men should come to his door and tell him they had decided - for reasons of convenience to them - that his children's lives would henceforth be restricted, their world smaller, their educational opportunities less, their future mutilated

If you can't love crudeness, how can you truly love mankind?

It's not right to hurt or deceive someone who's already been hurt and deceived.

Everyone has a right to be a little happy, asshole.

This was not of the nature of a Christlike lesson for Owen Meany to learn, as he lay in the manger, that someone you hate can give you a hard-on.

It's natural to want someone you love to do what you want, or what you think would be good for them, but you can't interfere with people you love anymore than you're supposed to interfere with people you don't even know.

I don't want you to describe to me—not ever—what you were doing to that poor boy to make him sound like that; but if you ever do it again, please cover his mouth with your hand.

No one but me ever put a hand on me to feel that baby. No one wanted to put his ear against it and listen...You shouldn't have a baby if there's no one who wants to feel it kick or listen to it move.

All I say is: Let us leave les folles alone; let's just leave them be. Don't judge them. You are not superior to them - don't put them down.

When (The World According To) Garp was published, people who'd lost children wrote to me. ''I lost one, too,'' they told me. I confessed to them that I hadn't lost any children. I'm just a father with a good imagination. In my imagination, I lose my children every day. (afterword)

but good friends are nothing to each other if they are not supportive.

Hang in there, Frank!' Freud called - to the entire lobby. 'Don't let anyone tell you you're queer! You're a prince, Frank!' Freud cried. 'You're better than Rudolf!' Freud yelled to Frank. 'You're more majestic than all the Hapsburgs, Frank!' Freud encouraged him. Frank couldn't speak, he was crying so hard.

He wanted to take Homer Wells in his arms, and hug him, and kiss him, but he could only hope that Homer understood how much Dr. Larch's self-esteem was dependent on his self-control.

Only the chicken-lover will understand me. He will give me a kindly look, maybe mildly desirous. His eyes will tell me: You might look a lot better with some reddish-brown feathers.

Once again, Jack reached for her hand. It was the only thing he knew how to do. As it would turn out, it was about the only thing he reall knew.

Every time you throw a snail off the dock, Ray teased Homer Wells, you're making someone start his whole life over. Maybe I'm doing him a favor, said Homer Wells, the orphan.

It's natural to want someone you love to do what you want, or what you think would be good for them, but you have to let everything happen to them. You can't interfere with people you love any more than you're supposed to interfere with people you don't even know. And that's hard. Because you often feel like interfering—you want to be the one who makes the plans. . . You can't protect people, kiddo, all you can do is love them.

Flor and Juan Diego and Lupe were the Iowan's projects; Edward Bonshaw saw them through the eyes of a born reformer, but he did not love them less for looking upon them in this fashion.

Ah, well... I started to say, and then stopped. So that was where he was going; I'd heard it before. Richard had told me that I'd not been standing in my mother's shoes in 1942, when I was born; he'd said I couldn't, or shouldn't, judge her. It was my not forgiving her that irked him-it was my intolerance of her intolerance that bugged him.

A personal injustice is stronger motivation than any instinct of philanthropy

As a fourteen-year-old, he'd not been old enough to have sympathy for her—for either the child or the adult that she was.

It's rare when there's something we can do for ourselves which also pleases someone else.

A loving couple will say things to each other - you know, Danny - just to make each other feel good about a situation, even if the situation isn't good, or it they shouldn't feel good about i, Ketchum said. A loving couple will make up their own rules, as if these made-up rules were as reliable or counted for as much as the rules everyone else tried to live by - if you know what I mean.

Candy took the bathing suit from her and used the suit to wipe the tears from Rose Rose's face. You're fine, you're just fine, Candy said to the girl. And you're going to feel better. No one's going to hurt you.