Quotes About Empathy

When you don't know what to do with yourself, do something for someone else.

One should be able to say anything to a close friend, he reflected, and yet part of friendship was knowing what not to say and when not to say it

I guess since the groin is the center of a guy's world, he rarely guesses it isn't the center of yours.

You're my friend, Danny. You understand? There's no debt between friends." Maybe it's just that the debt gets so high you stop counting it.

Can I…I mean, do you mind if I sleep up here? If you don't, I, um, understand. I just—" "Yes." The word bolted out of me. "Yes, please. Maybe I'll be able to sleep if you're here.

But it's a whole lot easier to keep[secrets] when you've got someone else who knows breathing in the same room. Carrying them alone is like having a huge spiky weight digging into your shoulders and chest, a weight you can't shift even while you're sleeping.

Don't worry about me," I finally said. "Really. I'm more worried about you." And even more worried about where Graves is. "Are you?" A fey smile lit his face, and I caught my breath. It was a shock to see him look so happy. "Well, then.

I dislike the thought of damage to you.

Did she not get it? He'd done everything but hit her on the head and drag her into a cave.

sure I'm for helping the elderly. I'm going to be old myself some day.

What you get is a living, what you give is a life.

For every man who lives without freedom, the rest of us must face the guilt.

It is not good to see people who have been pretending strength all their lives lose it even for a minute.

Lonely people talking to each other can make each other lonelier.

Sympathy is charming, but it does not make up for pain.

I squat there and think about how you get trained early on as a woman to perceive how others are perceiving you, at the great expense of what you yourself are feeling about them. Sometimes you mix the two up in a terrible tangle that's hard to unravel.

It´s so much easier to cry when there are arms around you.

It's a particular kind of pleasure, of intimacy, loving a book with someone.

Sometimes you just find a culture that breaks your heart," she said finally.

you get trained early on as a woman to perceive how others are perceiving you, at the great expense of what you yourself are feeling about them.

Who are we and where are we going? Why are we, with all our "progress", so limited in understanding & sympathy & the ability to give each other real freedom? Why with our emphasis on the individual are we still so blinded by the urge to conform?

For long stretches of time it felt like we were crawling around each other's brain.

I'm both the sad person and the person wanting to comfort the sad person.

Halfway across the river I hoist myself on the wide parapet, swing my legs over the edge, and look down in the water for Quentin's body. How does a man in Mississippi in the 1920s create a character who feels more alive to a waitress in 1997, remembered with more tenderness, than most of the boys she's ever known? How do you create a character like that?