Quotes About Empathy

When I step out of my front door, I have to paint on a bright, big smile to make sure people treat me kindly rather than with suspicion, or assume that I'm going to be aggressive.

If somebody gives me his hand, I will not look at him with suspicion.

I have matured as a man to understand where my suspicion of women comes from and how that has everything to do with me and nothing to do with them. I have to deal with that.

After September 11, 2001, I was feeling like I really wanted more understanding between cultures. It seemed to me that so much of what happened on September 11 was because people didn't understand each other and were suspicious of each other.

I'm always suspicious of people who repent of other people's sins.

When your heart speaks to you about what you need to do to sustain life on this planet, listen to it, make a difference, and be an inspiration for generations to come. Be inspired by people like Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Christopher Reeve, Albert Schweitzer, Helen Keller, and many others.

The clear-sighted do not rule the world, but they sustain and console it.

When I was working on my first novel, 'The Quilter's Apprentice,' I knew I wanted to write about friendship, especially women's friendship and how women use friendship to sustain themselves and nurture each other.

It sustained me... I can't tell you how much their support meant to me when I was leaving and coming back and even while I was gone, there was a part of me that knew people were pulling for me.

Writing a book is very personal. It's a very personal relationship. A book will start with something as simple as two men talking about work. That gets the fire going. Sustaining that fire is the hard work. It takes attention and empathy to hone the characters.

I realized there's a difference between creating a character and sustaining a character. The challenge that comes with sustaining a character is that you have this sudden impulse to think about all the things the audience liked.

I really have had to swallow my own prejudice at times.

I used to swallow people's energies, and then I learned, as I got older, that I'm too sensitive, and I had to stop doing that. Now I don't take as much in.

If there's a problem, I prefer to have to swallow that myself than force a team-mate to do so. I think about them because in my position that is what your job consists of.

I do listen to myself sometimes and think, 'Is my moral compass so easily swayed by the characters I play, or is it me growing as a human being?'

If you buy a sweater for €1,000 and you know that the funds you are paying are also going to help to build a hospital and a school, wouldn't you think better about it?

When a mother feels cold, she asks the child to wear a sweater. Our concept of poverty is that way. When we do a project and people receive our help, we may think that they are getting benefited, but is this what they really wanted?

Appellate advocacy, particularly at the Supreme Court, is really intimate. I mean, you're just a few feet away from the Chief Justice. You know, if you're sweating, they see you.

I don't get carried away by looks; only her character can sweep me off my feet. But for that I need to know her talk to her.

By hating that person, you have lost something very sweet in yourself.

Being attracted to someone plays a big part, but there's also so much more than that for me. It's about finding someone sweet and kind - and that has a servant's heart.

My mother was a very sweet soul and a beautiful person, but she had a lot of fear.

I am a sweet old softy, but it took toughness to get through what I went through.

When I play the clarinet, I am 100 percent myself. It is as if it is part of my body. I can play whatever I think. Let me just read a melody and make it as sweet as I can.