Quotes About Empathy

He was trying to rape me. Again that long, assessing, intimate look. I can sympathize with the temptation, he said, half to himself.

He wasn't sure why or how, but he… cared about her. He could be the worst possible bastard, but something stopped him from being that callous, and the thought disturbed him. Was he growing soft? Becoming kind?

You're only ever as happy as your least happy child?' 

Liam really enjoyed a good movie. He found it restful to watch people's conversations without being expected to join in. But he always felt sort of lonesome if he didn't have someone next to him to nudge in the ribs at the good parts.

It wasn't what you said, he told her.It was how I felt when you said it.

You could really feel physically wounded if someone hurt your feelings badly enough.

I always think it's a good sign when a man likes cats. It shows he doesn't feel the need to be in constant control of things.

You know why I like to talk to you, Delia? You never interrupt with your experiences. Not jiggling your foot till you get a chance to jump in with your life history.

You wake in the morning, you're feeling fine, but all at once you think, "Something's not right. Something's off somewhere; what is it?" And then you remember that it's your child—whichever one is unhappy.

Epictetus say that everything has two handles, one by which it can be borne and one which it cannot. If your brother sins against you, he says, don't take hold of it by the wrong he did you but by the fact that he's your brother. That's how it can be borne.

I really believe that most people who seem scary are just sad.

Abby had a little trick that she used any time Red acted like a cranky old codger. She reminded herself of the day she had fallen in love with him.

This is a specific person, do you understand? Not just some patient . I want to make sure you realize that.

Reading is the first to go, my mother used to say, meaning that it was a luxury the brain dispensed with under duress. She claimed that after my father died she never again picked up anything more demanding than the morning paper. At the time I had thought that was sort of melodramatic of her, but now I found myself reading the same paragraph six times over, and I still couldn't have told you what it was about.

It is the language, maybe?" he asked. "I know the vocabulary, but still I am not capable to work the language the way I want to. There is no special word for 'you' when it is you that I am speaking to. In English there is only one 'you,' and I have to say the same 'you' to you that I would say to a stranger; I cannot express my closeness.

I think if you knew them well enough, if you'd listened to them closely enough while they were still alive, you might be able to imagine what they would tell you even now. So the smart thing to do is, pay attention while they're living.

I read so that I can live more than one life in more than one place.

People who hadn't suffered a loss yet struck me as not quite grown up.

You wake in the morning, you're feeling fine, but all at once you think, "Something's not right. Something's off somewhere; what is it?" And then you remember that it's your child—whichever one is unhappy. She

One sad thing about this world is that the acts that take the most out of you are usually the ones that people will never know about.

I read so I live more than one life in more than one place.

But still, you know how it is when you're missing a loved one. You try to turn every stranger into the person you were hoping for.

You wake in the morning, you're feeling fine, but all at once you think, "Something's not right. Something's off somewhere; what is it?" And then you remember that it's your child—whichever one is unhappy. She circled the hall to close the door to

But what helped more was to walk down a crowded sidewalk sometimes, or through a busy shopping mall, and reflect that almost everyone there had suffered some terrible loss. Sometimes more than one loss. Many had lost their dearest loves, but look at them: they were managing. They were putting one foot in front of the other. Some were even smiling. It could be done.