Quotes About Empathy

It's my deepest interest as an actor: I love discovering how human beings work, how their flaws reveal themselves - how to learn and grow from that - and how characters teach me things as a woman and as a parent.

When you see a parent pass, and you literally are there, and you're sitting at that deathbed, man, and you have to tell them to go, it defines life for what it really is.

If I'd been a parent to myself, I would have been scared because I was only ever interested in my own thoughts.

Mental health is an area where people are embarrassed. They don't want to talk about it because somehow they feel they're a failure as a parent or, you know, they're embarrassed for their child or they want to protect their child, lots of very good reasons, but mental health, I feel, is something that you have to talk about.

People think the advantage of a parent in the business is that they'll open doors for you. But the true advantage for me is having someone who knows exactly what you're going through.

I've had this conversation with friends who have had challenging relationships with one or another parent. The only thing I can say is what I feel: The other person isn't going to change. That is who they are.

The really hard moment was when my dad said, 'Honey, if an agent is telling you to lose weight, then maybe you should lose weight.' I was 15, standing in our living room, having a moment I will never forget. I never had a parent tell me to lose weight, and it hurt.

I realized I didn't just want to parent children in my own little home but to mother the whole world. What's the point of gaining influence if you're not going to use it?

You have to be enough of a parent - you have to be there. If I'm feeling bad, I really do just have to get on with it and try and channel it back into my work somehow, do something positive with it.

As a parent, you just want to really make sure your kids understand what you are trying to say as much as their maturity level will allow them to.

As a parent, you go through a whole lot of really tough things, and you kind of want other parents to experience those tough things as payback - especially when it's your brother.

Parenthood is a great equalizer. It doesn't matter how famous you are - once you become a parent, you are just like everyone else.

When you experience parenthood, it makes you look at the other side as well.

We criticize mothers for closeness. We criticize fathers for distance. How many of us have expected less from our fathers and appreciated what they gave us more? How many of us always let them off the hook?

Parenting three children at the same time has helped me grow as a filmmaker. It taught me to be more empathetic and understand what people want from me.

I think a dad has to make his daughter feel that he's genuinely interested in what she's going through.

I want to speak directly to the audience, to say, 'I'm like you - I'm frustrated, I'm not an expert, I don't have a manual on parenting, I make mistakes, I'm selfish too.'

It's not your responsibility to comment on parenting for others. I would hate if someone did that to me.

It's really hard to figure out what they need to know. And that's parenting, in general. It's hard to figure out what would benefit your kids and what would just make them needlessly frightened.

I think letting babies cry it out is barbaric. Why would parenting stop when it's dark outside? You can't expect a baby to know that he's supposed to sleep just because we want to go to bed.

So much of my work is about children and/or parenting; it's something I'm drawn to without being able to completely articulate why.

All parents should be aware that when they mock or curse gay people, they may be mocking or cursing their own child.

Whether it was the 9/11 attacks, Paris shooting, or the attack on the Taj, people across the world mourn the collective loss.

I feel so linked to Paris.