Quotes About Empathy

You know that things aren't going well for you when you can't even tell people the simplest fact about your life, just because they'll presume you're asking them to feel sorry for you. I suppose it's why you feel so far away from everyone, in the end; anything you can think of to tell them just ends up making them feel terrible.

For the first time, but certainly not the last, I began to believe that Arsenal's moods and fortunes somehow reflected my own

I want to be a well-rounded human being with none of these knotty lumps of rage and guilt and self-disgust.

It's easier to have parents if you've got a girlfriend.

He'd told her it was just a scratch and got cross when she hadn't offered morphine.

Why should we be denied basic human rights just because we've messed up our relationships?

They're not me, but I wish I was them. Maybe not them, exactly, because they're not so happy either. But I wish I was one of those people, the people who know what to say, the people who can't see the difference. Because it seems to me that you have more chance of being able to live a life you can stand if you're like that.

The difference between sex with David and sex with Stephen is like the difference between science and art. With Stephen it's all empathy and imagination and exploration and the shock of the new, and the outcome is... uncertain, if you know what I mean. I'm engaged by it, but I', mot necessarily sure what its all about. David, on the other hand, presses this button, then that one, and bingo! It's like operating a lift - just as romantic, but actually just as useful.

Sorry Maureen.

I see now that dismissing YA books because you're not a young adult is a little bit like refusing to watch thrillers on the ground that you're not a policeman or a dangerous criminal...The world suddenly seems a larger place.

One thing about great art: it made you love people more, forgive them their petty transgressions.

He could see why his mum chose (italicized) friends, instead of just putting up with anyone she happened to bump into, or sticking with people who supported the same football team, or wore the same clothes, which was pretty much happened at school; his must have conversations like this with Suzie, conversations that moved, conversations where each thing the other person said seemed to lead you on somewhere.

I'm not telling you that suicidal people aren't so far away from people who can get by; I'm telling you that people who get by aren't so far away from being suicidal. Maybe I shouldn't find that as comforting as I do.

those places are reserved for the kind of humiliations are heartbreaks that you're just not capable of delivering. That probably sounds crueler than it is meant to, but the fact is that we're too old to make each other miserable, and that's a good thing, not a bad thing...

Capisci che non stai andando bene quando non puoi raccontare agli altri i fatti più semplici della tua vita, solo perché immaginerebbero che gli stai chiedendo pietà. Secondo me è per questo che una si sente così lontana da tutti, alla fine: qualunque cosa pensi di dirgli, finisce sempre che li fai star male.

It was almost as if he had been given a glimpse of what it was like to be human. It wasn't too bad, really; he wouldn't even mind being human on full-time basis

It was funny how you could still know little things about people, like where they kept their tin, even though you didn't know what they were thinking from one week to the next.

Sometimes Marcus sounded as though he were a hundred years old, and it broke Will's heart.

listen, pal. I came here because I knew how worried you must be. But if you're going to talk to me like that, I'll fuck off home. The word racist brightened a little: the Anglo- Saxon was striking back against the Roman invader.

So it's not about what you do. It can't be, can it? It has to be about how you are, how you love, how you treat yourself and those around you, and

Man kann sich über jeden lustig machen, der unglücklich ist, man muss nur grausam genug sein.

One thing about great art: it made you love people more, forgive them their petty transgressions. It worked in the way that religion was supposed to, if you thought about it. What

Top five things I miss about Laura...Two: she's got character...she's loyal and honest, and she doesn't even take it out on people when she's having a bad day. That's character.

But sometimes, very occasionally, songs and books and films and pictures express who you are, perfectly. [...] This is me. I wanted to say when I read Tyler's rich, sad, lovely novel. I'm not a character, I'm nothing like the author, I haven't had the experiences she writes about. But even so, this is what I feel like, inside. This is what I would sound like, if I ever found my voice.