Quotes About Empathy

Why do you always have to be right, I remembered John saying. It was a complaint, a charge, part of a fight. He never understood that in my own mind I was never right.

People who have recently lost someone have a certain look, recognizable maybe only to those who have seen that look on their own faces. I have noticed it on my face and I notice it now on others. The look is one of extreme vulnerability, nakedness, openness.

Why, if those were my images of death, did I remain so unable to accept the fact that he had died? Was it because I was failing to understand it as something that had happened to him? Was it because I was still understanding it as something that had happened to me?

I never saw a wild thing / sorry for itself, D.H Lawrence wrote ... This may be what Lawrence (or we) would prefer to believe about wild things, but consider those dolphins who refuse to eat after the death of a mate. Consider those geese who search for the lost mate until they themselves become disoriented and die

Il dolore non tiene le distanze. Il dolore arriva a ondate, parossismi, ansie improvvise che ti tagliano le gambe e ti accecano e cancellano la quotidianità della vita.

Devi avere sempre ragione? , ricordai che John diceva. Era una lamentela, un'accusa, parte di una contesa. Non aveva mai capito che dentro di me non avevo mai ragione.

Manau der?t? bent jau linktel?ti žmon?ms, kuriais kadaise buvome,- ir nesvarbu, maloni mums j? draugija ar ne.

I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.

Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one's self back in that kind of mood, but I do see it; I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.

I smooth out the snapshot and look into his face, and do and do not see my own.

We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4AM of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed.

Life is limited, but by writing, and reading, we can live in different worlds, get inside the skins and minds of other people, and, in this way, push out the boundaries of our own lifes.

we live blindly. We repeat the same mistakes by rote until an emotional punch to the gut brings us up short. ...Sometimes it requires intense pain before we can take a good hard look at ourselves, before we ask the important questions. ... Who am I? What is important? What do I believe? What do I want?

I quess when you bottle things up inside you, misunderstandings pile up.

No sabem res dels altres, ni ens importa; en canvi, voldriem que els altres ens coneguessin a fons. El nostre afany de ser compresos només es pot comparar amb la nostra desgana per comprendre ningú.

No em clavis un sermó; els sermons són desoladors perquè son un ranxo, igual per a tothom, quan cada u sent el seu mal com a únic i intransferible.

The difference between Morgan and Gwenhwyfar, he found himself thinking, was that while both knew how to give, it was Morgan who knew how to give up.

We say that so-and-so is a loving person or a cold person; we admire, are even awed by, people who have a large capacity for compassion. I think of Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of the most powerful aspects of friendship is the alleviation of loneliness. When another person indicates that they understand us, that we are no longer alone, there's an expansion of joy in our chests, a feeling like no other. All of us live in solitary confinement, waiting for a friend to appear and set us free. Etched on the key that welcome rescuer holds are these words: I understand you.

The jabs Sheila launched in my direction never failed to score a direct hit to my soft belly. I

What I really wanted — and needed — were friends of my own. People who would like and accept me for myself. Once

Was it worth saying that she was no longer going to do anything for anyone since it seemed to her that the more generous she was, the more she herself seemed to get punished?

A book is your friend, and you don't break a friend's back.

Kids that age are very accepting. If we could just get them to keep that attitude, it might be a kinder world.