Quotes About Empathy

I know how to be the witness to her grief. I don't know how to be this kind of villain.

I thought you needed to be tougher. But I've been thinking that protecting somebody by hurting them before someone else gets the chance isn't the kind of protecting that anybody wants.

Maybe it was that nearly everyone else was dead and she felt a little bit dead too, but she figured that even a vampire deserved to be saved. Maybe she ought to leave him, but she wasn't going to.

Mirroring behavior. When a mark takes a drink from his water glass, so should you. When he smiles, so should you. Keep it subtle, rather than creepy, and it's a good technique.

I wonder if he really could rationalize what I did to him, really treat betrayal like the slight transgression of a recalcitrant business partner. I wonder if I hurt him. If he can rationalize what I did to him, it's easy to imagine how he rationalized what he did to me.

A stray dog, I might understand," she said. "But this? You are too softhearted." No, Mabry," Ravus said. "I am not." He looked in Val's direction. "I think she wants to die." Maybe you can help her after all," Mabry said. "You're good at helping people die.

She can't help it. She loves the con. I tell myself I'm not like her, but I have to admit I love it too.

He closes his eyes. When he opens them, he releases my hand and turns so I cant see his face. ¨I can see why you thought what you did. I suppose I am not an easy person to trust. And maybe I ought not to be trusted, but let me say this: i trust you.¨ Page 162

Sometimes it's easier to be mad at the people close to us," Vivi said, "than to be mad at the people who deserve it.

I'm sorry,' she said to each of the dead as she unzipped and unfastened their things, 'I'm sorry Courtney. I'm sorry Marcus. I'm sorry Rachel. I'm sorry Jon. I'm sorry I'm alive and you're dead. I'm sorry I was asleep. I'm sorry I didn't save you and now I'm taking your things. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

If you don't know why you're apologizing, your apology probably sucks.

Everyone finds different lessons in stories, I suppose, but here's one. Having a heart is terrible, but you need one anyway.

Don't take it personally," Call said. "Lots of people find me really annoying. It's not just you.

So long as you're begging, he doesn't mind a bit.

Our tragedy is that we forget it might be someone else first.

I haven't had a very good day. I think I might still be hung over and everyone's dead and my root beer's gone." Horrifyingly, she felt her eyes prick with sudden tears. He bent down and picked up Aidan, slinging him over one shoulder. "We'll get you another day," Gavriel said, with such odd sincerity that she had to smile.

I don't imagine myself back in a life like theirs; what I imagine is going over there and scaring them until they cry. I would never, of course. I mean, I don't think I would.

Cassel, she said, you want to know how to be the most charming guy anyone's ever met? Remind them of their favorite person. Everyone's favorite person is their own damn self.

I think you have iron poisoning," she tells him, which could be true but is still a hurtful thing to say when he is making perfect sense.

She'd known he'd understand. Brothers and sisters had their own language, their own shorthand. She was glad to be able to share the weird, ridiculous impossibleness of it with the only person who knew all the same stories, with the person who'd made those stories in the first place. (pg. 117)

love doesn't grow well, fed on pain.

It is my belief that books are living things.

He asks me nothing more, only matches his steps to mine.

He smiled, a real smile, the kind real boys gave real girls. "It's been a very long time since anyone worried for me.