Quotes About Empathy

Jesus, Morelli, you sound like you have PMS. You have to learn to lighten up a little. It's just a car alarm. You should be thanking me. I had it installed with my own money.

I don't know if it's a good idea to give a woman a box of bullets when she's got a pimple.

I don't feel so good. Lula said. And she farted. She squeezed her eyes shut tight and did a full minute-long fart. Excuse me. she said. I was horrified and impressed all at the same time. It was a record breaking fart. On my best day, I couldn't come near to farting like that.

You don't have to be there to be there.

Hey! Lula yelled, back in Ranger's face. You look at me when I'm having a breakdown. And don't pull that mysterio silent shit on me. I don't take that bus, you see what I'm saying?

His hands still held the windbreaker, his knuckles resting lightly on my breasts. An act of intimate possession more than of sexual aggression.

Hey," I said, "dogs are people, too.

Death isn't such a big deal when it's happening to someone else.

real nice for him." The corners of

Take my advice. Stay away from all broken people.

She was not used to being cruel, but he had taught her how.

I almost said, you're not broken, you're just going through something. But i couldn't. She knew. There was something terribly wrong with her, all the way inside. She was like a big diamond with a dead spot in the middle. I was supposed to breathe life into that dead spot, but it hadn't worked...

I liked it when my mother tried to teach me things, when she paid attention. So often when I was with her, she was unreachable. Whenever she turned her steep focus to me, I felt the warmth that flowers must feel when they bloom through the snow, under the first concentrated rays of the sun.

A novel is like a dream in which everyone is you. They're all parts of yourself.

To them, pain was a country they had heard of, maybe watched a show about on TV, but one whose stamp had not yet been made in their passports.

If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.

I almost said, you're not broken, you're just going through something. But I couldn't. She knew. There was something terribly wrong with her, all the way inside. She was like a big diamond with a dead spot in the middle. I was supposed to breathe life into that dead spot, but it hadn't worked.

Who can judge another man's suffering?

You imagine you can see me, Mother? All you could ever see was your own face in a mirror." "Who am I, Mother? I'm not you. That's why you wish I were dead. You can't shape me anymore.

How vast was a human being's capacity for suffering. The only thing you could do was stand in awe of it. It wasn't a question of survival at all. It was the fullness of it, how much could you hold, how much could you care.

Nobody knew anyone else's private world. In the end, they were all alone as inmates on death row, side by side. Sometimes you could get a look at one another with a little pocket mirror, cell to cell, but that was all.

I'd seen a couple of Claire's movies now. She was transparent, heartbreaking. I would be afraid to be so vulnerable. I'd spent the last three years trying to build up some kind of a skin, so I wouldn't drip with blood every time I brushed up against something. She was naked, she peeled herself daily.

I felt just the way Billie Holiday sounded, like I'd cried all I could and it wasn't enough.

We get all the bad dreams, ese, she said, stroking my wet cheek with the palm of her hand. We got to leave some for somebody else.