Quotes About Empathy

Kay," I whispered, and I wondered why sometimes the people you wish you could understand the most are the ones you can't understand at all.

Stories provide a rare chance to temporarily suspend being in your own body, in your own life, and to slip into the very existence of another person.

Forgiveness given is forgiveness gained.

That's what I'd say in my essay about To Kill a Mockingbird, I decided. I'd make sure the English teacher knew that the story of Jem and Scout and Atticus Finch wasn't just words someone made up in a book. There were people who lived it—people of all different

One thing that discovering my own history had taught me is that we must learn not to whip ourselves for the failures of others. When a mother cannot love and protect her children, it is not the children who are defective.

It's when you're honest about them that you find the people who will love you in spite of your nicks and dents. Perhaps even because of them. The people who don't? Those people aren't the ones for you.

I've finally come to fully understand that you can't fix another person. You can't fix the past. You can only change your way of reacting to it. You have to wait for other people to fix themselves.

We were young women with lives and husbands and children by the time we were brought together again. We chose not to interfere with one another. It was enough for each of us to know that the others were well….

want a pain I understand instead of the one I don't. I want a pain that has a beginning and an end, not one that goes on forever and cuts all the way to the bone.

This music of old age…it isn't made for dancing. It's so…lonely. You're a burden to everyone.

The love of sisters needs no words. It does not depend on memories, or mementos, or proof. It runs as deep as a heartbeat. It is as ever present as a pulse.

I have learned that most people get along as best they can. They don't intend to hurt anyone. It is merely a terrible by-product of surviving.

Blessings aren't fully realized until they are passed along.

Tightening my fingers, I held on. "Honey, the farther you go in life, the more you realize that most people aren't trying to hurt anybody. They're just trying to . . . get by. People don't always make the right decisions—even the people we love. I know Jake loves us. He's just trying to . . . find his way right now.

Stories are a little like mind places. You can do whatever you want with them. I want my stories to have happy endings, where nobody hurts anybody. There's enough hard stuff in the real world.

It's funny how when you think you've got problems, you usually don't have to look far to find someone who's in a lot worse shape.

I'm indebted to all of you who read these stories and also to the booksellers who sell them with such devotion. As Mr. Rogers once said, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.

Ever'body got a reason for what they do. You eat off somebody else's plate, drink a their cup, could be, you'd be that same way.

To look at me now, you would think I'd never understood the secret. This music of old age...it isn't made for dancing. It's so...lonely. You're a burden to everyone.

The music of old age is difficult to hear when it's playing for someone you love.

In my multifold years of life, I have learned that most people get along as best they can. They don't intend to hurt anyone. It is merely a terrible by-product of surviving

Hardship finds its way into every life. It's just much easier to see our own than other people's.

In a few years, she would realize that there was nothing she could do to change the world around her, to repair the people she needed most. The missing pieces were out of reach of her tiny hands, the broken places not hers to mend. In my adult mind I understood that, but deep inside me there would always be the girl who wondered if she could have fixed things.

most people get along as best they can. They don't intend to hurt anyone. It is merely a terrible by-product of surviving.