Quotes About Empathy

It can be really exasperating to look back at your past. What's the matter with you? I want to ask her, my younger self, shaking her shoulder. If I did that, she would probably cry. Maybe I would cry, too. It would be like one of those Marguerite Duras books I tried to read in Svetlana's aunt's apartment. Elle pleure. Il pleure. Ils pleurent, tous les deux.

I learned a lot from that, like how much it hurt to see how other people described you, and how things that you said about another person, especially your parents, seemed neutral when addressed to a third party, but lethal when you thought about your parents reading it.

I felt a wave of nausea to realize that I had propagated these stories just by telling Svetlana what was going on—just because I had wanted to tell some other person the basic events of my own life.

Definitely there are times when I'm tired and don't want to give up my seat on the bus to an old person. But I get depressed, not angry—like about how I'll be an old woman someday, and even more tired than I am now. I never think I deserve the seat more because I am reading a book." Worried this might sound self-righteous, I added, "Maybe it's just because I dont' read on the bus, it makes me carsick.

Please don't leave me all alone." Was that what I, too was afraid of? And maybe not just me, but everyone?

Already we were competing to see whose way of doing things was better. But it wasn't a competition so much as an experiment, because neither of us was capable of acting differently, and each viewed the other with an admiration that was inseparable from pity.

Just think," he said. "What would your mother say?" Tears welled to my eyes. My mother would be sorry for me.

linguist called Alla who advised us, among other things, to treat our more stupid students with sympathy, "as if they had cancer." While

But you aren't really looking!" she exclaimed. "You are—" She flipped through her dictionary. "Wool, gathering!" "That's true," I said. "I am woolgathering." "You are thinking about your friend," she said. "That's why you don't want to listen to me." "But Rózsa. Don't you ever like to . . . to do woolgathering?" "No! I am not a dreamer.

Ivan pushed his paper cup in various directions, as if it were a king under check. He said that in Hungary people were more honest. If they thought you were doing something stupid, they let you know right away. Americans were polite and remote, as if there were bubbles separating everyone. "You can't tell if someone really likes you," he said. "You can't get close. There are all these blocks." "Blocks," I echoed.

What was it to know each other?

Senin için, benim için ol­duÄŸundan daha zormuÅŸ gibi geldi hep." "Neden benim için daha zor olsun?" "Çünkü sen yaln?zs?n.

Weeping, a powerful physical process that was normally out of the question, became a constant possibility.

Riley made me a tape of her Fiona Apple album.

I didn't identify with anyone in any paintings.

It can be really exasperating to look back at your past. What's the matter with you? I want to ask her, my younger self, shaking her shoulder. If I did that, she would probably cry. Maybe I would cry, too. It would be like one of those Marguerite Duras books I tried to read in Svetlana's aunt's apartment. Elle pleure. Il pleure. Ils pleurent, tous les deux.

I wondered why he had told me something so terrible about himself.

How comfortable it was to read about comfortable people!

I forgave him for a lot when he said that. I forgave him for almost everything.

Was this because their neurological hardwiring made them better at systems, while women were better at empathy—because men valued abilities and things, while women valued feelings and people? How could we learn to place less value on feelings and people?

It can be really exasperating to look back at your past. What's the matter with you? I want to ask her, my younger self, shaking her shoulder. If I did that, she would probably cry. Maybe I would cry too. It would be like one of those Marguerite Duras books I tried to read in Svetlana's aunt's apartment.

I didn't care if he was a genius or a fucking idiot, he was rotting away, and it wasn't fun to watch.

A lot of people think I'm that guy in 'Betsy's Wedding', but I'm not. What it is for me is that, on some level, I connect with the character emotionally.

How often people come to us, children to parents, wives to husbands, friends to friends, trying to unload their burdens, and as we sit there listening, our minds and hearts are thousands of miles away. If we were completely present to each other, we would rightfully expect miracles to happen. To be completely present to others is to help them experience the personal love of God.