Quotes About Empathy

And it was the first time that I believed the claim that you can help a person more by asking them the right question than by giving them the answer.

You will stand in line for snacks behind good clothes on bad bodies, behind the man who is so drunk he has lost his shoes, and so belligerent no one will help him find them.

It is such a pretty story, told to me by a Cuban woman I met in a bar at the beach. She left the bar before I did; a drunken man took her place. He leaned into me and said, I see in your dark eyes that you have suffered, and you have compassion, and I have suffered, and I have compassion, and I see in your eyes that I can say things to you-- My eyes are blue, I said.

We keep wanting people to be different.

The striking part of his communication is what he doesn't say, when saying something would make a difference.

People often share anecdotes with me. I know you will appreciate this, they say. Indeed, I can be counted on to validate the remarkableness of their tales, bringing my hands to my cheeks and exclaiming in all the right places.

What does sensitive mean exactly? he asked, and I tried to explain it to him as best I could: Let's say you see someone crying, and you don't even know them, but you kind of catch their sadness, it somehow jumped into your heart, and this makes you understand a bit how they feel.

In most cases, it is more satisfying to get a friend's answering machine and leave a cheery, tangible trace of your sincere commitment to the friendship than it is to engage in actual conversation.

Failure to shed tears is a failure to live life fully. And the one thing that life requires of us all is to live it. Never be embarrassed by your ability to be alive.

He had no interest in another person, in imagining what it might be like to be on the other side.

wisdom is like a bottomless pond. You throw stones in and they sink into darkness and dissolve. Her eyes looking back do not reflect anything. I think this to myself even though I love my daughter. She and I have shared the same body. There is a part of her mind that is a part of mine. But when she was born she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and has been swimming away ever since. All her life, I have watched her as though from another shore.

If I now recognize evil in other people, is it not because I have become evil too?

You see what power is – holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them

Your tears do not wash away your sorrows. They feed someone else's joy. And that is why you must learn to swallow your own tears.

I saw a girl complaining that the pain of not being seen was unbearable... Now I have perfect understanding. I have already experienced the worst. After this, there is no worse possible thing.

In this matter, you should not concern yourself for my sake.

My mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other's meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more.

If someone offers to take your burden, you need to know he is serious, not just being polite and kind. Polite and kind do not last.

we were like two people standing apart on separate mountain peaks, recklessly leaning forward to throw stones at one another, unaware of the dangerous chasm that separated us.

I had always assumed we had an unspoken understanding about these things: that she didn't really mean I was a failure, and I really meant I would try to respect her opinions more. But listening to Auntie Lin tonight reminds me once agian: My mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other's meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more. No doubt she told Auntie Lin I was going back to school to get a doctorate.

Even though I did not understand her entire story, I understood her grief.

All night long I worried, not about myself but about Jimmy. I imagined him looking for me, running through the park, looking in the movie theatres. He was a good man, considerate and kind, but he was not strong. He had never been through any kind of bad hardship before. So I worried.

How can you blame a person for his fears and weaknesses unless you have felt the same and done differently? How can you think everyone can be a hero, choosing death, when it is part of our nature to let go of brave thoughts at the last moment and cling to hope and life?

Auntie Yang is not hard of hearing. She is hard of listening.