Quotes About Empathy

We're all on our own. Even when you're surrounded by people, or sharing a bed with a loving lover, you're alone.

It's easy to think the minefield wasn't that bad once you're safely watching other people get blown up.

You could try as hard as you could to imagine someone else's tragedy - but nothing truly hurts until it happens to you.

I understand now that desperate, clumsy desire to make people feel better—even when you know perfectly well that nothing will.

Oh, Lord. Tess could feel her entire personality being drained from her body. Those talkative, energetic people always left her feeling that way.

It was strange, because she always felt that she hid herself from Erika, that she was more 'herself' with her 'true' friends, where the friendship flowed in an ordinary, uncomplicated, grown-up fashion (emails, phone calls, drinks, dinners, banter and jokes that everyone got), but right now it felt like none of those friends knew her the raw, ugly, childish, basic way that Erika did.

Parents do tend to judge each other. I don't know why. Maybe because none of us really know what we're doing? And I guess that can sometimes lead to conflict.

But women like Tess didn't seem to have that need to share the ordinary facts of their lives, and that made Cecilia desperate to know them.

Samantha: Parents do tend to judge each other. I don't know why. Maybe because none of us really know what we're doing? And I guess that can sometimes lead to conflict. Just not normally on this sort of scale.

Abigail is having a 'beautiful experience' with Bonnie at the homeless shelter," Madeline said to Ed. Ed took his pillow off his face. "That's revolting," he said. "I know," said Madeline. This is why she loved him.

Alice thought of poor Hillary Clinton. Imagine having the whole world know that your husband had cheated on you in such a messy way. You would have thought being president of the United States should have been a pretty distracting sort of job.

I'm your best friend, Erika," he said sadly. "Don't you know that?

He has mistakes in his past. I have mistakes in mine. The fact that we actually are each other's mistakes is irrelevant!

It was one of the best things about him; he liked to talk about people, study them, and work them out. He was interested in the complexities of relationships.

there is nothing more patronizing to an Infertile than to hear a new mother complaining,

there was real pain in the world, right this very moment people were suffering unimaginable atrocities and you couldn't close your heart completely, but you couldn't leave it wide open either, because otherwise how could you possibly live your life, when through pure, random luck you got to live in paradise? You

Why hadn't that been part of his stupid lifelong redemption program: Do what my wife asks immediately so she doesn't feel like a nag.

You'll be fine," said Jane, giving

She'd been lacking in so much confidence when she was a teenager, worrying all the time about what people thought of her and how they might hurt her, without even considering the impact she might have on their feelings.

I didn't have enough other people in my life to cover the loss of this many people at once. I didn't have spare aunties or cousins or grandparents. I didn't have backup. I didn't have insurance to cover a loss like this.

You mustn't take any notice of her,' says Enigma. 'I often sing a little song in my head until she's finished talking.

They'd been too tired to keep sharpening the edges of their hurt feelings.

And Jeremy, her earnest face crumpled. She looked so embarrassed, I felt like I'd kicked a kitten. She was falling all over herself to apologize.

admit it to her dad, who would just take what she said at face value, rather than her mother, who would listen too intently and empathetically and filter everything through her own emotions.