Quotes About Understanding

The English major reads because, as rich as the one life he has may be, one life is not enough. He reads not to see the world through the eyes of other people but effectively to become other people.

We need to learn not simply to read books but to allow ourselves to be read by them.

Too Tired To Argue. If she ever wrote a book about parenting, that would be the title.

You know I don't have much experience of big families, but from what I've seen there are two types. The type where everything is out in the open, where they argue and shout and slam doors, and where disagreements are dealt with loudly and quickly. And the other type, where no one really says what they mean, where everyone tiptoes around and emotions are kept buried. ~Here to Stay

Human history has no unique pattern of intelligibility.

Depressed people think they know themselves, but maybe they only know depression.

Meditation did not relieve me of my anxiety so much as flesh it out. It took my anxious response to the world, about which I felt a lot of confusion and shame, and let me understand it more completely. Perhaps the best way to phrase it is to say that meditation showed me that the other side of anxiety is desire. They exist in relationship to each other, not independently.

Enlightenment does not mean getting rid of anything. It means changing one's frame of reference so that all things become enlightening.

Can you grasp your right fist with your right hand? Obviously not -- your hand can't grasp itself. But there's another, less obvious reason why you can't do it: As soon as you open your right hand to grasp something, you no longer have a right fist.

Barry's of a mind it's better to be silent and presumed a fool than to open your mouth and remove doubt altogether.

Words lose their meaning when you look at them too long. 'God.' 'Science.' Meaning.

Don't make another's pain the source of your own happiness.

WILL'S RULES FOR LIVING #13: READ BOOKS TO GET SMARTER. READ PEOPLE TO BECOME WISER.

even buying a user's manual—The Female Orgasm—and learned to his dismay that writing twenty-five thousand lines of code was cake compared to bringing a full-grown female to orgasm.

Why didn't women come with a freaking Error Message box?

To strengthen your interpersonal influence, don't win arguments. Instead, win hearts and minds.

I need to talk to you about something. I was so busy feeling upset with you and then acting impatient and irritated that I stepped on your toes instead of walking in your shoes. When I stopped to do that, I thought if I were you, I'd feel frustrated (scared, angry, etc.). Is that true?

Perceiving is believing. Misperceiving is deceiving— And worse yet, prevents achieving.

Understanding a person's hunger and responding to it is one of the most potent tools you'll ever discover for getting through to anyone you meet in business or your personal life.

In this situation, your success hinges entirely on talking the person up from reptile to mammal to human brain

If someone can't or won't listen to you, get him to listen to himself.

Questioning works better than telling. That's why Will didn't tell Evan, "Don't let your friends get you into trouble." Instead, he asked questions that made Evan think, "Who's likely to get into trouble, and what should I do if it happens?" In other words, Will didn't talk down to Evan, or talk at him. Instead, the two talked side by side emotionally as well as physically.

anger and empathy—like matter and antimatter—can't exist in the same place at the same time. Let one in, and you have to let the other one go. So when you shift a blamer into empathy, you stop the person's angry ranting dead in its tracks.

Making someone "feel felt" simply means putting yourself in the other person's shoes. When you succeed, you can change the dynamics of a relationship in a heartbeat. At that instant, instead of trying to get the better of each other, you "get" each other and that breakthrough can lead to cooperation, collaboration, and effective communication.