Quotes About Empathy

I'm sorry that it was all so successful. I honestly didn't mean it to happen like that. It's hardly surprising that people grew to hate me.

I'm not a good gift-giver, other than the fact that I like surprising people. I usually give what people ask for but I try to make it seem like I'm not buying it.

I kept a lot of my ideas to myself because I honestly thought no one cared. So it was surprising to find out that people did! Now I know that I can do anything, and I want other people to feel the same.

Most people do surprisingly poorly when dealing with a relative who is hurting, depressed, or anxious - we get defensive and try to solve the problem rather than finding the truth in what the person is saying.

This is the first lesson for writers - or anyone - who conducts interviews: If you want someone to talk, you've got to know how to listen. And good listening is a surprisingly active process. The interviewee is your focus of attention; you are there to hear what he says and thinks, exclusively.

The eyes of dogs are surprisingly humanlike.

Since it's based on my parents, it's more emotionally close to me than some of my more surreal plays. And then I like the balance of the comic and the sad. It should play as funny, but you should care about the characters and feel sad for them.

My message to the world is to surrender your ego: try not to think that you are not as fortunate as some people or inferior or not as good as someone else.

If we show people that fear isn't actually the place that we have to surrender to, fear isn't actually the thing that we have to answer to, but instead, it's going in and loving people.

I do, indeed, close my door at times and surrender myself to a book, but only because I can open the door again and see a human face looking at me.

But when I would see the surrogate, my first instinct, my first reaction would be jealousy, because she was doing what I wanted to do.

Books are not missiles, you don't aim them at anybody

You see, this happened a few months ago, but it's still going on right now, and it ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love.

You sound like a nice man," the woman said. "Do I? Well, that's nice of you to say." He knew he should hang up now, but it was good to hear a voice, even his own, in the quiet room.

Imagine a woman who could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one.

You tell me you didn't sleep well. I say I didn't either. You had a terrible night. "Me too." We're extraordinarily calm and tender with each other as if sensing the other's rickety state of mind. As if we knew what the other was feeling. We don't, of course. We never do. No matter. It's the tenderness I care about. That's the gift this morning that moves and holds me. Same as every morning.

Es eso lo que sucede cuando muere un amigo? ¿La mala suerte para los camaradas que deja atrás?

You know what? I think if you were on fire right now, if you suddenly burst into flame this minute, I wouldn't throw a bucket of water on you.

My wife finally took her eyes off the blind man and looked at me. I had the feeling she didn't like what she saw. I shrugged.

Nick e Joanne guardavano l'incendio tenendosi stretti, ma mentre lei gli accarezzava distrattamente una spalla, Nick fu assalito dalla sensazione familiare, che ogni tanto lo attanagliava, di non sapere bene a cosa lei stesse pensando.

Mike, you're not asleep, are you? No, he said. Nothing like that. Well don't go to sleep before me, she said. I don't want to be awake by myself.

Oía los latidos de mi corazón. Oía el corazón de los demás.

Two things are certain: 1) people no longer care what happens to other people, and 2) nothing makes any real difference any longer.

I'm all done with hating you. It's all washed out of me. I hate people hard, but I don't hate them very long.