Quotes About Understanding

Non devo fargli aumentare il dolore, pensò. Il mio non importa. Posso controllarlo. Ma il suo dolore può farlo diventare matto.

I'll say just what you wish and I'll do what you wish and then you will never want any other girls, will you?' She looked at me very happily. 'I'll do what you want and say what you want and then I'll be a great success, won't I?' 'Yes.

Staying quiet doesn't mean I have nothing to say, it means I don't think you're ready to hear my thoughts.

I know how you feel, Dave, Andrew said when he brought the Coke. Nobody knows how I feel, David said.

Now I don't give a shit I lost him, David said. I don't care about the records. I just thought I did. I'm glad that he's all right and that I'm all right. We aren't enemies. I'm glad you told us, Thomas Hudson said. Thank you very much, Mr. Davis for what you said when I first lost him, David said with his eyes still shut. Thomas Hudson never knew what it was that Roger had said to him.

The Colonel's Lady and Judy O'Grady are Lesbians under their skin.

En haukar deila við aungvan.

You cannot know about it unless you have it.

Úr orðum mínum gerði hann þá eitthvað sem varð að afmá, og stundum helst sjálfan mig um leið.

For one who had afición he could forgive anything.

Se non mi ami, non importa, sono in grado di amare per tutti e due.

Women made such swell friends. Awfully swell. In the first place, you had to be in love with a woman to have a basis of friendship.

Tu sais, Papa, que les femmes pleurent comme les enfants pissent?

When people talk, listen completely. Don't be thinking what you're going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. You should be able to go into a room and when you come out, know everything that you saw there and not only that. If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling. Try that for practice.

I don't care what a man is. I mean, a great artist is like a great doctor. I don't care how racist he is. If he can show me how to operate on a heart so that I can cure a brother, or cure someone else, I don't give a damn what the man thinks; he has taught me something. And that is valuable to me. And that is valuable to others and man as a whole.

I was not there, yet I was there. No, I did not go to the trial, I did not hear the verdict, because I knew all the time what it would be. Still, I was there. I was there as much as anyone else was there.

You are aware of the result, not the process.

The question Who am I? really asks, Where do I belong or fit? We get the sense of that direction -- the sense of moving toward the place where we fit, or of shaping the place toward which we are moving so that it will fit us -- from hearing how others have handled or are attempting to handle similar (but never exactly the same) situations. We learn by listening to their stories, by hearing how they came (or failed) to belong or fit.

To acknowledge, to accept, and to forgive one's parents - both what they gave and what they did not give, both one's dependence upon them and one's independence of them - is the ultimate hallmark of maturity: a perception as valid for institutions as for individuals.

Humility and obedience are two painfully misunderstood virtues that are really the arts of listening. Humility involves the refusal to coerce, the rejection of all attempts to control others.

I'm Not All-Right, and You're Not All-Right, But That's Okay—THAT'S All-Right

As we listen, truly hearing, our understanding of the world changes from a self-centered focus to an other-oriented openness—we come to understand how we are connected

The essence of tolerance lies in its openness to difference.

My dear, do you want forgiveness … or an explanation?