Quotes About Empathy

But what really makes any story real is knowing someone will hear it and understand

Ordinarily, I am the person who falls in love quickly and somewhat inappropriately and then goes on to destroy what is a good thing. That's always been my style. So, you know: I get it. And I feel right now the way I imagine all those guys felt with me. And I have to say, for the first time in my life, I feel something approaching compassion for them.

You've got to let people be just, you know, people. Everyone does bad things sometimes, for all sorts of reasons. You've got to at least understand.

it was hard to be a mother when you had never been mothered yourself. Your children's needs remind you of your needs. Their pain reminds you of your pain. All of it reminds you of how bad it felt, how hard it was, how much you wanted and needed and didn't get. It's very hard.

Running and shouting "No" to a puppy may make them stop at the moment, but you'd stop too if someone shouted at you. Your puppy doesn't understand; you'll only succeed in making them afraid of people.

If one of your human friends or relations is eager for a kiss, ask them to wait until your puppy is on all four paws before coming down to their level.

I get it that no one can really understand what another person feels. But it's the idea that chores or school or life don't have to drag you down if you stick together. That's what clicks with me. Or did. Too late to lose sleep over it now. Even

You can only fit so many words into a postcard. Only so many in a phone call. Only so many into space, before you forget that words are sometimes used for things other than filling emptiness.

I love hands like I love people. They are the maps and compasses with which we navigate our way through life, feeling our way over mountains passed and valleys crossed; they are our histories.

Impossible is trying to connect in this world; trying to hold on to others when things are blowing up around you; knowing that while you are speaking, they aren't just waiting for their turn to talk. They hear you.

And the first time you come down to dinner, and your son is sitting at the dining room table wearing your hatred on his shoulders, who is going to be the first to tell him it is finally time to take it off?

There are so many things I would tell you if I thought that you would listen and so many more you would tell me if you believed I would understand.

You'll never know what your mother went through.

Some people will punish you merely for witnessing their weakness. Even if they sought you out and asked for help. Even if you helped. Especially if you helped.

He would let Violet find her own way and time to tell Elizabeth. In the interim, he would listen and hold her hand and offer his counsel, but he would not push. He understood now how deep her wounds ran, how hard it was for her to trust that she could make mistakes and still deserve love.

Entonces empezó a llorar. No se si era por el dolor que sentía o por el dolor que acababa de provocar.

the theater is one of the few places left in the bright and noisy world where we sit in the quiet dark together, to be awake. Ruhl, Sarah. 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater (p. 103). Faber & Faber. Kindle Edition.

No, you're not. If you were really sorry, you wouldn't have done it. We do as we please, and then say we're sorry. But we're not sorry. We're just uncomfortable--watching other people in pain.

It's this feeling that you want to love strangers, that you want to kiss the man at the post office, or the woman at the dry cleaners - you want to wrap you arms around life, life itself, but you can't and this feeling wells up in you, and there is nowhere to put this great happiness - and you're floating - and then you fall down and become unbearably sad. And you have to go lie down on the couch.

Don't make a wall of glass between your play and the people watching. Don't forget they were once children, who enjoyed being read to, or sung to sleep.

Nothing disrupts dehumanization more quickly than inviting someone over, looking into their eyes, hearing their voice, and listening.

Then they went on to discuss other things because there is always something more to a person than what somebody else does to them.

We should lower the bar for what must happen in a person's life for their suffering to be acknowledged. "The current paradigm is encouraging all of us to think we are in abusive relationships," Hodes explained. "And if you are not in an abusive relationship, you don't deserve help. Being 'abused' is what makes you 'eligible.' But everyone deserves help when they reach out for it.

This is a sappy way to put it, but the Winthrop who warns Williams is the Winthrop I fell in love with, the Winthrop Cotton Mather celebrates for sharing his firewood with the needy, the Winthrop who scolds Thomas Dudley for overcharging the poor, the Winthrop of 'Christian Charity,' who called for 'enlargement toward others' and 'brotherly affection,' admonishing that 'if thy brother be in want and thou canst help him...if thou lovest God thou must help him.