Quotes About Empathy

When one is writing a novel in the first person, one must be that person.

You know, the point of a novel - or to me, the point of a novel, the gift of a novel is to go really deeply inside people's lives and inside their personal experiences.

Even if there is endless documentation, it would be impossible to know what a man thought inside his own mind... This is where the novelist's creative imagination has to take over.

You know, my mom, who inspired me to be a novelist, I remember her reading 'The Agony and the Ecstasy,' about Michelangelo, and saying, 'No mother would want that for her child, no matter how great the artist.' I have my share of demons, but I am a gregarious sort.

I've always had a compassion for characters in novels - the sense that they are, whatever they might think, living in a world that has a shape they don't know and can't finally alter.

Only in novels can we take another human being into our head and create something jointly.

Everyone has a bad day now and then.

When you're around somebody all the time, you butt heads every now and then. That's what happens in every family.

I be thinking sometimes, maybe I'm just too hard on people. Maybe I want too much. But no, I don't. All my granny did was cook for me, tell me that she love me, gave me hugs every now and then.

You know, everyone needs somebody to talk for them every now and then.

Nowadays, I know the true reason I read is to feel less alone, to make a connection with a consciousness other than my own.

Everybody's darkness is different. My darkness came from my mom having pancreatitis and almost dyin'. And what I noticed was that the darkness ain't goin' nowhere.

We have taught our children that meanness gets you nowhere in life.

All of us have a bit of a sociopath inside of us, and it's wrong to think that somebody is just clearly sociopathic, because they're not. It's interesting to explore the shadings and nuances within a person. Those feelings exist within more human beings than people may want to acknowledge.

Dealing with chronic anxiety has taught me to better understand the nuances of mental illness and the very individual nature of it.

LVMH is not just about numbers. It's about people.

As strong as we are, we have our moments. My mama is an African woman who had four kids and was a nurse for 25 years, and she had her moments. I've seen her cry.

We both felt it was important for us to remain a couple. I didn't want to be just his nurse.

I used to want to be a nurse. But then my sister cut herself really badly and I almost fainted.

My mom was a nurse at Rikers Island and she cried to me about not going the wrong route.

Anybody who fights for human rights or to make this world a better place. Nurses, doctors, teachers: these are the people who deserve the credit these days.

I love to take care of people, which is why I went to nursing school.

A woman can't teach a man how to be a man. But she can teach you how to nurture, how to care, how to love, and how to give.

I think as a woman it's in our nature to nurture someone else. Sometimes at the expense of ourselves.