The 'here' of Watts is pastel houses with window gratings in curly patterns. 'Here' is yard sales with bins full of stuffed animals and used water guns. Here is Crips turf. — 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
“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
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
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
We don't want to be wounds ("No, you're the wound!") but we should be allowed to have them, to speak about having them, to… — Leslie Jamison Copy Share
“Empathy isn't just listening, it's asking the questions whose answers need to be listened to.” — Leslie Jamison Copy Share
