Quotes About Empathy

He had a habit also, when being spoken to, no matter how earnestly, of turning very slowly on his heel and limping a little way away, head bowed, and then stopping to stand with his back turned and hands clasped behind him, so that one could not be sure that he was still listening to what one was saying, or had sunk into altogether more profound communings with himself.

One reason for not writing a lost-in-the-funhouse story is that either everybody's felt what Ambrose feels, in which case it goes without saying, or else no normal person feels such things, in which case Ambrose is a freak.

However things hurt, men hurt worse.

Jesus said, "It is impossible that no offenses should come" (Luke 17:1). It is not a question of opportunity to be offended, but what your response will be. It is an unfortunate fact that, not some, but many are offended and held captive.

When we seek to correct the wrong done to us, we set ourselves up as a judge. The

She still said nothing and I purposely did not look at her because I did not wish either to press her or to embarrass her. I was in love with her, and my heart went out to her as she tried to fathom her own feelings. I felt like saying: Don't bother to explain, darling. I know it all. Instead, the calculating side of my mind was at work: the side that plotted carefully, planned to get what it wanted and nearly always succeeded.

Only through the mind can the world be seen. Only through the heart can it be understood.

And then the room went very dark and somehow, despite the chaos that followed, Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel's hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let it go.

Those people... well, they're not people at all, Bruno

It's a big world, isn't it?' said Georgie. 'Do you think they hate each other on other planets too?

One single syllable of intimacy and the world is put to rights.

He decided to talk to the Hopeless Case

Astonishing how everyone is willing to go abroad to fight for the rights of foreigners while having such little concern for those of their own countrymen at home.

He knew that sometimes people who were sad didn't want to be asked about it; sometimes they'd offer the information themselves and sometimes they wouldn't stop talking about it for months on end, but on this occasion Bruno thought that he should wait before saying anything.

Don't you ever think,' he asked cautiously, 'that it would be better to be a bully than to be bullied? At least that way no one could ever hurt you.' Katarina turned to him in amazement. 'No,' she said definitively, shaking her head. 'No Pieter, I never think that, not for a moment.

He had never felt so ashamed in his life; he had never imagined that he could behave so cruelly. He wondered how a boy who thought he was a good person really could act in such a cowardly way towards a friend.

It was the fact that I didn't want to kill anyone. I wasn't put on this earth to murder my fellow man. I'd grown up with violence - can't you see that? I can't bear it.

Why are you so afraid of people being happy? he read. Why can't you just live and let live?

It was … difficult at first,' he said. 'I am a person. But I seemed to forget in time …' 'Forget what?' 'That they were people too.

he could never understand the enjoyment some people got from hurting others. And that, he told Anshel, applied to chickens too.

Fences such as the one at the heart of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas still exist; it is unlikely that they will ever fully disappear. But whatever reaction you have to this story, I hope that the voices of Bruno and Shmuel will continue to resonate with you as they have with me. Their lost voices must continue to be heard; their untold stories must continue to be recounted. For they represent the ones who didn't live to tell their stories themselves.

I've seen all those movies, of course. Schindler's List, The Pianist, Sophie's Choice. And I've watched a few documentaries and read a few books. But you don't really get a sense of it until you're actually there, do you? Have you ever been, Mrs F.?' I said nothing.

and been committed to a home for the bewildered

Ah those people, said Father, nodding his head smiling slightly. Those people...well, they are not people at all, Bruno.