Quotes About Empathy

Be his friend—i.e., be there for him. Pay attention to him and show interest—e.g., ask questions. Respect him—e.g., care about the things he cares about, like his family and friends. Flirt with him—e.g., smile. Don't try to change him—i.e., accept him as he is, flaws and all.

That's how relationships work. The system falls apart only when you're both too stubborn to go after the other person.

with you, Aidan, just as you are, whatever your job is, whatever you do. I just hate that you got hurt—

Love is when someone puts you on a pedestal and yet when you fall, they're there to catch you anyway.

Now that she could breathe again and he wasn't hurt, she moved closer because a proper southern woman always looked a person in the eyes while she yelled at him.

He nodded, still holding her gaze in that way he had that convinced her that not only could he read her mind, but he could see right through her. Inside her.

that while maybe his family didn't always understand him, he'd never taken the time to understand them either.

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry" (James 1:19). That's especially important for those of us who are fix-it people. If I am a fix-it person and my kids have a problem, I consider it my job to intervene. That's what I do, and that's who I am—Mr. Fix-It. But unless our adult kids ask us for help, we must resist the impulse to fix their problems.

I'd made the vampire cry. Great. I felt like a real superhero. Harry Dresden, breaker of monsters' hearts.

Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don't feel it.

Murphy watched me thoughtfully for several empty seconds. Then she said, very gently, You're a good man, Harry. I swallowed and bowed my head, made humble by the tone of her voice and the expression on her face, more than the words themselves. Not always rational, she said, smiling. But you're the best kind of crazy.

There are some people who will never understand what loyalty means. They could tell you what it was, of course, but they will never know.They will never see it from the inside. They couldn't imagine a world where something like that was real.

Nearly everyone underestimates how powerful the touch of another person's hand can be. The need to be touched is something so primal, so fundamentally a part of our existence as human beings that its true impact upon us can be difficult to put into words. That power doesn't necessarily have anything to do with sex, either. From the time we are infants, we learn to associate the touch of a human hand with safety, with comfort, with love.

I can't believe I'm about to say this, I said. So think real careful about where this is coming from. Have you people ever considered *talking* when you've got a problem?

Wait. You don't understand. I just wanted it to stop. Wanted the hurting to stop. I smoothed a bloodied lock of hair from her eyes and felt very tired as I said, The only people who never hurt are dead. The light died out of her eyes, her breath slowing. She whispered, barely audible, I don't understand. I answered, I don't either. A tear slid from her eye and mixed with the blood. Then she died.

Being a wizard gives you more power than most, but it doesn't change your heart. We're all human. We're all of us equally naked before the jaws of pain.

We're always disappointed when we find out someone else has human limits, the same as we do. It's stupid for us to feel that way, and we really ought to know better, but that doesn't seem to slow us down.

Well, I never been to much school, you understand, but it seems to me that you're assuming something you shouldn't assume... that God sees the world like you do; one thing at a time, from just one spot. Seems to me that he's supposed to be everywhere, know everything. ...Think about that; he knows what you're feeling, how you're hurting. Feels my pain, your pain like it was his own. Hell son, the question isn't how God could care about just one person; question is, how could he not?

Life is easier when you can write off others as monsters, demon, as horrible threats that must be hated and feared the thing is you can't do that without becoming them, just a little.

Mouse is] with us. The dog is a handicap-assist animal. The kid lifted his eyebrows. My mouth is partially paralyzed, I said. It makes it hard for me to read. He's here to help me with the big words. Tell me if I'm supposed to push or pull on doors, that kind of thing.

You wouldn't be twisting yourself into knots like this, Harry, if you didn't care. So? Monsters don't care, Michael said. The damned don't care, Harry. The only way to go beyond redemption is to choose to take yourself there. The only way to do it is to stop caring.

It doesn't make you a monster to want, she said, her voice very gentle. It's what you do with it that matters.

War leaves you precious little time to be human. It's one of the more horrible realities about it.

Sometimes the only way to carry a heavy burden is to share it with another