Holden went to his bungalow and began to understand that he was not alone in the world, and also that he was afraid for the sake of another, -- which is the most soul-satisfying fear known to man.

I thought it would teach them a thing or two about empathy, and friendship, and loyalty. As it turns out, Jack Will didn't need to learn any of these virtues- he already had them in abundance.

It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.

Everything is going to be alright' doesn't mean stubbing your toe won't hurt anymore, but it reinforces that what takes place today, good or bad, is just a small piece of the larger puzzle

The nature of humanity, its essence, is to feel another's pain as one's own, and to act to take that pain away,. There is a nobility in compassion, a beauty in empathy, a grace in forgiveness.

I believe in love. I believe it transforms, transports, and transcends. I believe it fine-tunes goodness, solidifies strength, ripens resolve, eradicates rage, alleviates stress, and elevates empathy.

Other people's sorrows and joys have a way of reminding us of our own; we partly emphasize with them because we ask ourselves: What about me? What does this say about my life, my pains, my anguish?

I needed people to deliver my feelings back to me in a form that was legible. Which is a superlative kind of empathy to seek, or to supply: an empathy that rearticulates more clearly what it's shown.

People rarely ventured outside the realm of their own hurts. They believed their own suffering was obvious to all, but might as well have been wearing blinders for all that they noticed anyone else's.

As soon as we open our eyes in the morning, what we want most is to matter, to live a life and to do a work that has meaning. We have evolved to feel this way. Man's first thought was 'I AM'.

All novels . . . are concerned with the enigma of the self. As soon as you create an imaginary being, a character, you are automatically confronted by the question: what is the self? How can it be grasped?

For those constantly full of joy, they sometimes feel a little guilty for always feeling so good. That guilt is compassion: it flies in with an attempt to share one's joy with others who do not have it.

[The answer of Solon to the question 'Which is the most perfect popular government?']That where the least injury done to the meanest individual, is considered as an insult on the whole constitution.

God has a way of picking a “nobody” and turning their world upside down, in order to create a “somebody” that will remove the obstacles they encountered out of the pathway for others.

I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: "He is nothing but a boy -- a little boy!