Quotes About Understanding

In this respect, I think I was an effective parent—one who understood that family time was precious, and unrecoverable—and so in my own family a lot of time was spent in family rituals and encouraging each other's particular skills and interests.

the basis of all true learning.

Empathy is the accurate understanding of another person'ts internal experience. It has nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing with that experience. Unlike sympathy, it makes no assumptions about how the other person is feeling.

Empathy is the accurate understanding of another person's internal experience. It has nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing with that experience. Unlike sympathy, it makes no assumptions about how the other person is feeling.

But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults.

I asked her how she did it once, how she understood the world so clearly. She told me that it was a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves.

It was so simple. If you want it, I will do it. If it would make you happy, I will go with you. Is there a moment that a heart cracks?

I do not think anyone can say what is in someone else.

It's not fair," I said. "It cannot be." "Those are two different things," my grandmother said.

If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth. As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong. "Patroclus," he said. He was always better with words than I.

There was nothing in the world I wanted more than to know what he had not said.

He said what he meant; he was puzzled if you did not. Some people might have mistaken this for simplicity. But is it not a sort of genius to cut always to the heart?

Is it not our human tragedy that some men must be beaten like donkeys before they will see reason?

Her only love was reason. And that has never been the same as wisdom.

He paused now, considering. I loved this about him. No matter how many times I had asked, he answered me as if it were the first time.

Do not listen to your enemy, Odysseus had once told me. Look at them. It will tell you everything.

I learned to sleep during the day so that I would not be tired when he returned; he always needed to talk then, to tell me down to the last detail about the faces and the wounds and the movements of men. And I wanted to be able to listen, to digest the bloody images, to paint them flat and unremarkable onto the vase of posterity. To release him from it and make him Achilles again.

Give me the honest asp, who strikes me if I trouble him and not before.

This was the cruelty of adults. Do you understand?

It was so simple. If you want it, I will do it. If it would make you happy, I will go with you. Is there a moment that a heart cracks? But a cracked heart was not enough, and I had grown wise enough to know it.

Two children he had had, and he had not seen either clearly. But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults.

Less than a month we had spent together, yet he seemed to know me better than anyone who had ever walked the world.

A true-made bow, Odysseus had called her. A fixed star. A woman who knew herself. "I asked her how she did it once, how she understood the world so clearly. She told me that it was a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves.

Mother? Can you not be happy for me?" No, I wanted to shout at him. No, I cannot. Why must I be happy? Is it not enough that I let you go?