Quotes About Empathy

Being kind modified the extraordinary, alarming otherness of him, which was threefold—large, male and American.

I need to talk to you." "People always say that," Hartley said grimly, "but usually what they need is not to talk.

I don't understand." "Well, when you arrived at St. George's you wouldn't stop screaming. They thought something terrible must have happened to you." "This isn't St. George's, is it?" "No," he said kindly. "This is a private clinic. Rest, good food and so on. They have lovely gardens. I always think a lovely garden helps, don't you?

That was the thing about hospitals, anyone could wander into your room and gawp at you when you were at your very lowest, your most unflattering.

Harold?' 'Poor man, I suppose

We must remember these people when we are safely in the future.

Another gift is Pansy's love. Bathed in that love, Lyle in turn is gentle with other kids, especially with kids uneasy under their bragging, kids really as frightened as rabbits when a hawk darkens their world. Lyle's underweight presence steadies them, and he is sought after—but not exactly as a friend. He is more like Anansi the helpful spider of his favorite tales—a quiet ally who prefers his own company but skitters over to join you when you need him.

There are more and more visibly weird and freaky people in the world these days, and it's high time we stop carrying forward the junior high school dynamic of excluding them all from our lives or worse . . . nailing them to some cross.

No matter how your world falls apart—and honey, that's what happens: we all build ourselves a world, and then it falls apart—but no matter how that happens, you still have the kind heart you've had since you were a child, and that's what really counts. And I will always be here for you, my butzalah. I love you, Katherine.

Do whatever it takes to make your life more worth living...just don't be mean.

My grandmother told me something I've never forgotten. 'Never fuck anyone you wouldn't want to be.' -audience member

You can't make people listen to you. People only hear what they want to hear.

Without stories, how do we know who we are? How can we imagine who we can be?

Who can tell what metals the gods use in forging the subtle bond which we call sympathy, which we might as well call love.

She was just having a good cry all to herself.

I don't want to part in any ill-humor. But can't you understand? I've grown used to seeing you, to having you with me all the time, and your action seems unfriendly, even unkind. You don't even offer an excuse for it. Why, I was planning to be together.

Don't part from me in any ill humor. I never knew you to be out of patience with me before.

Let nothing human be foreign to me

I have always felt loneliest in the presence of other people. People I can't connect with. People I feel unseen by. People who make me feel insincere or uncomfortable. For me, loneliness comes from a sense of missing something. I never miss anything when I'm alone.

I have always felt loneliest in the presence of other people—people I can't connect with, people I feel unseen by, people who make me feel insincere or uncomfortable. For me, loneliness comes from a sense of missing something. I never miss anything when I'm alone.

Did you think that rats do not have hearts? Wrong. All living things have a heart. And the heart of any living thing can be broken.

There ain't a body, be it mouse or man, that ain't made better by a little soup.

Other people's tragedies should not be the subject of idle conversation.

Perhaps what matters when all is said and done is not who puts us down but who picks us up.