Quotes About Empathy

if it never happened to you, not ever, you would be like a mutant, a creature from outer space. Everyone knew that.

I need to feel physical pain, to attach myself to daily life.

When the leaders were older than me I could believe in their wisdom, I could believe they had transcended rage and malice and the need to be loved. Now I know better. I look at the faces in newspapers, in magazines, and wonder: what greeds, what furies drive them on?

If writing novels - and reading them - have any redeeming social value, it's probably that they force you to imagine what it's like to be somebody else. Which increasingly is something we all need to know.

She prefers the more dramatic shows where everyone's getting kidnapped or raped or shut up in a dark hole, and you aren't supposed to laugh at it. You're supposed to be upset, the way you'd be if it was happening to you. Being upset is a warmer, close-up feeling, not a chilly distant feeling like laughing at people.

Good. You are all intelligent women. Through your former…" He did not want to say professions. "Through your former experiences, you are familiar with the lives of women. You know how they are likely to think, or let me rephrase that—how they are likely to react to stimuli, both positive and less positive.

The SanctuCare women went over and welcomed them and said, "You're here now, it's all right," and the Gilead women started to cry. At the time I thought, Why cry, you should be happy, you got out. But after all that's happened to me since that day, I understand why. You hold it in, whatever it is, until you can make it through the worst part. Then, once you're safe, you can cry all the tears you couldn't waste time crying before.

Occasionally I do cry for no reason, as it says you are supposed to. But I can't believe in my own sadness, I can't take it seriously. I watch myself crying in the mirror, intrigued by the sight of tears.

Winning intoxicates you, and numbs you to the sufferings of others.

Which of us is it worse for, her or me?

I'm developing a knack for this, I can sniff out hidden misery in others now with hardly any effort at all.

The times when she was away were hard for Jimmy. He worried about her, he longed for her, he resented her for not being there.

remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest.

Girls of that age can be quite sadistic.

What I think doesn't matter. Which is the only reason he can tell me things.

She said gently that she wished he would talk more about his feelings. He said that if she had his feelings, she wouldn't want to talk about them either. This intrigued her. She was now more in love with him and more curious than ever.

She looks at you as if she really sees you." So many people had looked past me. "I think I'd like that," I said. "No," said Becka. "That's why she's so scary.

The instinct to soothe, to make it better. There there, she'd say, as he woke from a nightmare. Things are so hard for you. All this she would have believed, because otherwise how could she have kept on living?

There was a time when we didn't hug, after she'd told me about being gay; but then she said I didn't turn her on, reassuring me

He would like to get out of his own body for a while; he'd like to be somebody else.

in this world you have to take your bits and ends of kindness where you can find them, as they do not grow on trees.

I just want to love everyone. I don't care if that sounds stupid. I want to love everyone.

If you are generous with your heart, you have no idea of the depth & breadth of love's reach.

Now is a time for, dare I say it, kindness. I thought being extremely smart would take care of it. But I see I have been found out.