Quotes About Empathy

I loved Alex so much that it was easier to let him hurt me than to watch him hurt himself.

What you know isn't nearly as important as who you know. Who will miss you. Who you will miss.

When you do not understand the language being spoken, you have two options. You can struggle against the isolation, or you can give yourself up to it.

Where there is support, there is no grief.

He wished he knew what to say to make her feel better, but the truth was, he didn't feel all that great himself and he didn't know if there were even any words in the English language to take away this kind of stunning shock, this understanding that the world isn't the place you thought it was.

For the first time in my life I begin to understand how a parent might hit a child ..it's because you can look into their eyes and see a reflection of yourself that you wish you hadn't.

To be fair, I am not the same man. The one who listened. The one who believed her.

It's not because I don't want to hurt Delia's feelings. It's because when she is bruised, I'm the one who aches.

Josie said] I just ... I don't like the way you treat kids who aren't like us, all right? Just because you don't want to hang out with losers doesn't mean you have to torture them, does it? Yeah, it does, Matt said. Because if there isn't a them, there can't be an us. His eyes narrowed. You should know that better than anyone.

So don't judge me, unless you've fallen asleep on a couch with your ill child, thinking this night might be her last. Ask instead: would you do it? Would you give up your vengeance against someone you hate if it meant saving someone you love? Would you want your dreams to come true if it meant granting your enemy's dying wish?

Lacy truly believed that when you asked a patient How do you feel?, what was wrong wasn't nearly as important as what was right.

I sigh. "But if you'd talked to Jules—if she could hear you . . ." My voice trails off. "Then you wouldn't feel quite so crazy?" Oliver asks gently. "Can't you believe in me, if I believe in you?

Frankly, people don't make sense to me.' I nod in agreement. 'Frankly, people don't make sense to me either,' I say.

Being a mother gives you a singular sort of vision, a prism through which you can see your child with many different faces all at once. It is the reason you can watch him shatter a ceramic lamp, and still remember him as an angel.

Here's what girlfriends do for you: they provide the reality check. They are the ones who tell you when you have spinach between your teeth or when your ass looks fat in a pair of jeans or when you're being a bitch. They tell you, and there's no drama or agenda, like there would be if the message had come from your husband. They tell you the truth because you need to hear it, but it doesn't alter the bond between you.

It turns out that there's something even harder than not being able to be with the person you love when you're happy: not being able to comfort her when she's sad.

Joseph Obomsawin, the elder I lived with there, says that those who turn to animals do so because humans have let them down.

Sometimes all it take to become human again is someone who can see you that way, no matter how you present on the surface.

having someone with you when you die should not be a privilege but a right.

She lashed out because when you hurt someone else, you're less likely to feel your own pain.

When you begin a journey of revenge, start by digging two graves: one for your enemy, and one for yourself. —CHINESE PROVERB

We don't have to accept each other's beliefs…but we do have to accept each other's right to believe them.

Suffering so someone else didn't have to suffer. Sacrificing your body for someone else's well being.

Whatever your father did was not this woman's fault. And if she made him happy, when I obviously didn't, then the last thing you should be doing is yelling at her.