Quotes About Empathy

How can we not be dooms to each other?

This sort of quiet gazing, which was like a feeding of the heart, was something I had not experienced with any other woman.

I had the illusion of conversing with a fellow being without a barrier, without a steel door, without a black hood over my head . . . I have never, I think, impressed upon you how almost impossible I find it to communicate with anybody.

Of course one never knows about other people's loves, and I would certainly never know about James's.

It's not so easy. What isn't? To establish relationships, you can't just elect people, it can't be done by thinking and willing.

I know her by intuition as if she were inside my head.

He could feel the pain of her heart beating strongly against his own.

You don't know what it's like to be me, you don't know what it's like to be all tattered and destroyed inside.

Since she had been looking after him she had felt bound to him by a strange silent love.

Your best friends are in trouble and you say 'of course' and forget them instantly.

We naturally take in the catastrophes of our friends a pleasure which genuinely does not preclude friendship. This is partly but not entirely because we enjoy being empowered as helpers. The unexpected or inappropriate catastrophe is especially piquant.

I have battered destructively and in vain upon the mystery of someone else's life and must cease at last.

The bereaved cannot communicate with the unbereaved.

But suicides are mysterious, and one must respect their mystery.

Don't be hurt by me. I can't help being hurt —

Ludens was continually aware of his father's distress.

When dealing with a married couple one can never be neutral. The hot magnetic power of each one's view of the other makes the spectator sway.

You're always wanting to be forgiven. What do you want to be forgiven for?

Our relationship in fact was never idle. It was obvious that we constantly thought about each other.

A letter is a barrier, a reprieve, a charm against the world, an almost infallible method of acting at a distance.

Outsiders who see rules and not the love that runs through them are often too ready to label other people as 'prisoners'.

Ducane knew that Willy had looked forward to this visit. He knew too that the visit was rendering Willy unspeakably miserable.

A human being hardly ever thinks about other people.

Send anger and hate away. Love them and let them walk on you.