“Empathy means realizing no trauma has discrete edges. Trauma bleeds.” — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
“Empathy isn't just listening, it's asking the questions whose answers need to be listened to.” — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
My dad is an economist who does global development research. What he practices is a kind of quantifiable empathy: trying to empathize… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
It's kind of funny that I've been branded as the empathy lady when, really, what I'm doing is questioning and interrogating empathy. — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
I think of empathy as a set of cumulative effects, ideally - that it can be a force shaping your habits, shaping… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
“confession of effort chafes against the notion that empathy should always rise unbidden, that genuine means the same thing as unwilled, that… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
I needed people to deliver my feelings back to me in a form that was legible. Which is a superlative kind of… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
Empathy isn’t just something that happens to us — a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain — it’s also a… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
Learning the edges or limits or sources of friction in empathy was one of the big issues for me. — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
When bad things happened to other people, I imagined them happening to me. I didn’t know if this was empathy or theft. — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
Empathy is cloaked in our actions - as in, we might be experiencing empathy but not realize it's empathy. — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
“Empathy comes from the Greek empatheia - em (into) and pathos (feeling) - a penetration, a kind of travel. It suggests you… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
If you operate under the premise that everybody already has some experiences that could be sources of empathy for them, I wonder… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
Empathy isn’t just listening, it’s asking the questions whose answers need to be listened to. Empathy requires inquiry as much as imagination.… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
“Empathy is always perched precariously between gift and invasion... Empathy isn't just remembering to say 'that must be really hard' -- it's… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
When people ask what kind of nonfiction I write, I say 'all kinds,' but really I mean I don’t write any kind at all:… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
It's one of the most liberating things I experience in writing - letting yourself get rid of a gesture or character or plot point… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
The pain is what you make of it. You have to find something in it that yields. I understood my guiding imperative as: keep… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
I needed people to deliver my feelings back to me in a form that was legible. Which is a superlative kind of empathy to… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
In my own life as a reader I experience real moments of alienation when a writer feels too perfect, or like even the flaws… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
I'm happy not knowing. Most of the time (except when I'm a neurotic mess about uncertainty) I feel glad that the horizon is a… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
I do like arranging things. I like order. I basically like all these things that are the opposite of what people associate with the… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
I used to believe that hurting would make you more alive to the hurting of others. I used to believe in feeling bad because… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
“I obsessed, and told myself this obsession was empathy. But it wasn't, quite. It was more like inpathy. I wasn't expatriating myself into another… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
Post-wounded women know that postures of pain play into limited and outmoded conceptions of womanhood. Their hurt has a new native language spoken in… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
12-step recovery is very focused on abstinence, and that's bled into the broader understanding of treatment. It would be most useful to have multiple… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share Image
