Quotes About Empathy

Bridge to Terabithia takes us by the hand and leads us into a room that we have never entered before. After we read this story, we cannot unknow what we now know. We are devastated, emotionally rent. But still: we feel held, loved, seen. Someone trusted us enough to tell us the truth; and because of that, the room is golden, brimful of light.

Leslie called them Judy and Bill, which bothered Jess more than he wanted it to. It was none of his business what Leslie called her parents. But he just couldn't get used to it.

The moral, of course, is that you must always try to see other people's Point of View before you criticize anybody. Histories are crammed full of unkind things, silly things, and untrue things—why? Because so often the people who write them will not try to see or feel any Point of View but their own...So mind that you always look out for the Point of View and help people to see yours, too, if you want them to understand you.

But I had never caused my parents 'a minute's worry'. Didn't they know that worry proves you care? Didn't they realize that I needed their worry to assure myself that I was something?

I feel very silly saying to you, Tell me all about yourself, but I wish you would. I want to get to know you. That's not how you get to know people. Don't you know? You can't talk it out, you've got to live into their lives, bad and good. You'll know me soon enough. What I want you to know.

I knew that day that as long as I lived I would remember that my mother had cared more about how her child felt than any cherished antique, and I resolved that if I ever had any children I would remember that scene. I must never forget that a child's feelings are always more important than any possession.

Sometimes...you need to give people something that's for them, not just something that makes you feel good giving it.

for them, not just something that makes you feel good giving it. Because Mrs. Myers had helped him already by understanding that he would never forget Leslie. He thought about it all day, how before Leslie came, he had been a nothing—a stupid, weird little kid who drew funny pictures and chased around a cow

My dearest Friend, As I am urging our students to write a note to their mothers away from Shanghai, I think of you as a mother to so many of our Chinese girls. The greatness and depth of your love only God knows how to measure and reward you. Thinking of you has always been an inspiration to me. I love you. Lovingly yours, Tszo-Sing Chen

One of the novels that was hardest for me to write had to deal with the horrible slaughter of war. I almost didn't finish Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom for just that reason.

Whenever I am tempted to dismiss the poor or uneducated for their vulgar tastes, I see the face of old Auntie Braxton, as she stands stock still in front of our picket fence, lips parted to reveal her almost toothless gums, drinking in a polonaise as though it were heavenly nourishment.

You're different from everyone else. All the rules and emotions and obligations that guide most of us through life—they're invisible to us. They're natural, like breathing. But they're visible to you.

this, they've never felt that, they no longer feel anything, they don't count anymore. I think it's small-minded. I wish there were more people over sixty here, to tell you the truth.

In order not to bother or be bothered by ghosts, you just act like you're one of them. That's what I do.

Canyons of incomprehension yawn between me and most other human beings, and I keep acting as if it's possible for me to reach across and join them on their side, to span the gap between who they believe me to be and who I really am.

Unlike some species—crows, cowbirds, cuckoos—pigeons are not vengeful. But some part of me was eager to take to the air on behalf of these slaughtered birds, if not to avenge their deaths then to fly for the side that hadn't committed such an atrocity.

When you are older and have swum out into the stream of life, you'll see -- there are no good people, little girl. We're all trying and failing, trying too hard and failing too often. Remember that. We shouldn't judge too harshly, in the end, the sins of others...

You will see only that your own people are troubled. You will not see that a few must suffer for the millions to be saved.

I don't think real friends would be jealous. -Primrose

I am like glass to him, like water, Hannah thought to herself, alone now in the music room, heart racing. He sees through me, but how? Page: 97

If you are not for yourself, who will be for you? If you are only for yourself, what are you? If not now, when? –Rabbi Hillel

All this stuff about serving and stations. We are all the same now. There are no stations, no nests, no hollows. We're all orphans. We've all seen horrible things. The world is different now. And part of that difference is that there is no difference between any of us.

Why am I begging you, who parades your suffering over the ruins like a king in order to ensure that you will never be touched deeply, you who're always laughing.

All the people around Hester hate her and despise her and think she's a total freak. The kid's beyond human law and human consideration. How do you feel about yourself when every human being you hear and see and smell every day of your being thinks you're worse than garbage? Your conception of who you are has always, at least partially, depended on how the people around you behaved towards you... You don't know. How can you know anything? How can you know anything? You begin to go crazy.