Leslie Jamison

Perhaps if we say it straight, we suspect, if we express our sentiments too excessively or too directly, we'll find we're nothing…

— Leslie Jamison

You pass the old L.A. County jail, which is surprisingly beautiful. It's got a handsome stone facade and stately columns. The new…

— Leslie Jamison

After finishing a draft, no matter how rough, I almost always put it aside for a while. It doesn't matter if it's…

— Leslie Jamison

No trauma has discrete edges. Trauma bleeds. Out of wounds and across boundaries.

— Leslie Jamison

Probably every person is some mixture of wanting to feel a sense of commonality and shared experience with others but also wanting…

— Leslie Jamison

We think we should have to work in order to feel. We want to have our cake resist us; and then we…

— Leslie Jamison

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

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

Difficulty is our most reliable narrative engine.

— Leslie Jamison

I feel like I have a bit of a Type A personality.

— Leslie Jamison

If you operate under the premise that everybody already has some experiences that could be sources of empathy for them, I wonder…

— Leslie Jamison

Empathy isn’t just something that happens to us — a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain — it’s also a…

— Leslie Jamison

Though there might not be any easy answers to the problem of poverty, its most compelling scribes do not resign themselves to…

— Leslie Jamison

“Empathy comes from the Greek empatheia - em (into) and pathos (feeling) - a penetration, a kind of travel. It suggests you…

— Leslie Jamison

The 'here' of Watts is pastel houses with window gratings in curly patterns. 'Here' is yard sales with bins full of stuffed…

— Leslie Jamison

Empathy is cloaked in our actions - as in, we might be experiencing empathy but not realize it's empathy.

— Leslie Jamison

I really believe in people putting stories out there that contain the most difficult moments because nothing to me is more lonely…

— Leslie Jamison

“We want our wounds to speak for themselves, but usually we end up having to speak for them.”

— Leslie Jamison

“Bad movies and bad writing and easy cliches still manage to make us feel things toward each other. Part of me is…

— Leslie Jamison

I don't make films, and because I don't make films, I'm not an expert in the craft of bringing a film into…

— Leslie Jamison

“A cry for attention is positioned as a crime, as if attention were inherently a selfish thing to want. But isn’t wanting…

— Leslie Jamison

The story of getting better can be just as compelling as the story of falling apart.

— Leslie Jamison

“Prison is a wound we keep tucked in those parts of the country that can’t afford to turn it away, who need…

— Leslie Jamison

“I was ashamed. I wouldn’t be able to explain this properly to anyone. It had something to do with being seen. Everything…

— Leslie Jamison

I've been lucky enough to work with extraordinary teachers along the way, and I'm excited to share what I've learned with graduate…

— Leslie Jamison