Quotes About Empathy

I really believe waiting tables, and service industry jobs in general, make you a better person.

Most of us need time to work through pain and loss. We can find all manner of reasons for postponing forgiveness. One of these reasons is waiting for the wrongdoers to repent before we forgive them. Yet such a delay causes us to forfeit the peace and happiness that could be ours.

I've only cried at one book, but I'm too embarrassed to tell you which. It wasn't terribly intellectual. I will admit, though, to crying when I've read books aloud to my elementary class. We read a biography of Gandhi once, and it was very difficult to read the part where Gandhi was killed, because they were waiting for a happy ending.

I spent a lot of time listening to people. But it's also true that I liked details and listening to people when I was a bartender and when I was a waitress and probably when I was a babysitter as well. I suspect that's part of what drew me to psychotherapy rather than the other way around.

I get heartfelt thanks from all kinds of people. Today I heard from a waitress in Georgia who has lost her job and is trying to figure out how her local bank can change the terms on her credit card, and I heard from a physicist at a major research university who wants to explain a better theory of financial stress tests.

Once a waitress, always a waitress.

I've always been melancholic. At a party, everyone would be looking at the glittering chandeliers and I'd be looking at the waitress's cracked shoes.

As a former waitress myself, I know firsthand how a simple smile from someone can improve your day and how a single harsh word can destroy it. Being courteous and thoughtful costs you nothing and can sometimes pay you dividends in unexpected ways.

It's usually drawing on personal experience. I don't think I could dig deep enough trying to get into somebody else's life. Like 'Far From Me' - I wrote it about this waitress that I was dating when I was fifteen or so, and she broke up with me.

I've gotten to meet Sara Bareilles a couple of times. I'm just a such a massive fan of hers, from her albums to 'Waitress' to everything that she does. To be a fan of somebody and then find out that they have a good heart and are kind is really heartwarming.

You will be hard pressed to read another book that understands you as well as 'Leaves of Grass' does. It was made for you in the way that the constellations were made for you. It understands and makes space for your doubts, your love, the guilt and passions of your life and waits for you.

There are days when I still wake up angry, and no one handles it perfectly all the time, but honestly, I feel lucky to have diabetes because of the people I get to meet. The families, the kids, the parents, the other athletes. If I could pick a club to be in, this would definitely be it.

I'm not very happy. I'm frustrated with human beings. I'm the guy who just wants to smack people in the face and say, 'Wake up!'

Having to wake up at seven and go take the subway every morning, having to get over there with all these commuters and see every possible face of humanity and realizing that you're just the same as these other people is actually an amazingly positive thing.

I'm a straight white man - I have options, and I'm not blocked on a consistent basis when I wake up in the morning because of my race, sex, and orientation.

The characters in 'Stella' wake up and they want to have a good day. They don't set out to make someone's life a misery.

I still when I wake up hit the ground running; and having an illness, I'm only one of hundreds of thousands of people that live with an illness, and I'm just in awe of the bravery and dignity of the people I see at the hospital.

My goal isn't to wake up in the morning and hurt people's feelings.

When I wake up, I think, 'What can I do to help others?' I think we all owe the world something. That's the way I am when I'm designing a product.

We all wake up, and I'm sure at some point during the day we all have very similar thoughts regardless of our circumstances and where we are in the world.

September 11 was a wake-up call to me. I don't want to contribute to the hate in any shape or form. I now regret in the past being silent about what I have heard in the Islamic discourse and being part of that with my own anger.

The dog can only become what's in your bubble. The dog is imitating the energy that is in your bubble. You are the source, the feast of energy. If you feel anxious, the dog becomes anxious with you. If you become nervous, the dog wakes up nervous with you.

I think that's what's so great about 'Jessica James' is you get to sit back and take a moment and realize that this person is black. And some days, this character wakes up and feels black, and some days, she doesn't. That is, for me, a fully black experience.

Imagine if you put many, many years of your life into something and were passionate about it, and you spent every waking moment putting love into it and trying to make it better, and people didn't understand that. You'd want them to.