Quotes About Understanding

A country that does not know how to read and write is easy to deceive.

I had to leave my parents to love them again. I had to move across the country to appreciate that I actually had any pull toward them - that I needed them. I had to get away from them in order to come back to them. I'd like to say they did the best they could, but that couldn't have been their best. I wasn't doing my best either, so the idea that everyone is always doing the best they can is a trope. Some people are just interested in surviving; doing their best doesn't even occur to them.

Awesome," I told him. "I felt defensive at first, like I hadn't done anything worth apologizing for, but I recognized that it wasn't about my intention; it was about how my action was received. That my action was unwelcome. I get that now, and it didn't take long for it to click this time.

I wanted to learn how to forgive

define me. No event or person does this. I define me. I decide who I am and how I'm going to behave, and I choose to be better. To look more carefully, to trudge deeper. To think about other people's pasts and not judge someone for doing or handling something differently than I would. To understand

Now that I had a better understanding of why I was so pissed off, I could finally do something about it.

He was the only person in my family who understood that I was born going through menopause, and that whenever I ate soup, I had to take my top off.

Sisters. Only a sister knows how to comfort a sister. Period. End of story. Men can give us a hug or pat us on the back, but only a girl will get another girl off her feet to face the rain.

She told me that she liked white people but didn't have any close white friends and asked if I was interested in cross-pollinating. I told her we would see how things went but not to put the chicken wing before the egg. We grew to be fast friends, and a couple

She worried about Shana and Roy. She always told me she never worried about me. She never held any of my past behavior against me; she never passed judgment—she was always ready with new unconditional love.

Men can give us a hug or pat us on the back, but only a girl will get another girl off her feet to face the rain.

Often we think we are showing up for someone, when really all we're doing is showing everyone how great we are at showing up. Lack of empathy. That hit me over the head. I have no empathy. Yes! That's right!

People start to heal the moment they feel heard.

Treat people with kindness because behind every face is a story that could use a little more love.

The world's most sensible person and the biggest idiot both stay within us. The worst part is, you can't even tell who is who.

When a woman comes into your life, things organize themselves.

A wise man can be a fool in love.

your right I get it it all make sense now, your the perfect person so right so wrong lets all live in your imaginary life.

The triumph of the written word is often attained when the writer achieves union and trust with the reader, who then becomes ready to be drawn into unfamiliar territory, walking in borrowed literary shoes so to speak, toward a deeper understanding of self or society, or of foreign peoples, cultures, and situations.

I tell my students, it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself, somebody next door who looks like you. What's more difficult is to identify with someone you don't see, who's very far away, who's a different colour, who eats a different kind of food. When you begin to do that then literature is really performing its wonders.

I do not see that it is necessary for any people to prove to another that they build cathedrals or pyramids before they can be entitled to peace and safety.

Wisdom is like a goatskin bag; every man carries his own.

Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation. This is what I try to tell my students: this is one great thing that literature can do - it can make us identify with situations and people far away.

People are wrong when they tell you that Conrad was on the side of Africans because his story showed great compassion towards them. Africans are not really served by his compassion, whatever it means; they ask for one thing alone – to be seen for what they are: human beings. Conrad pulls back from granting them this favour in Heart of Darkness.