sympathy

Though I did not know her exact address, that she appeared to live almost within breathing distance of Robin, and that I lived with him, and that her pictures showed that she was now dating the mysterious Rupert Hunter, our despotic mothers, our absent fathers, the borders we had both crossed, all our many parallels and connections at every point, could not be chance. I saw it as evidence of the hidden connections between things, an all-powerful algorithm that sifted through chaos, singling out soulmates.

It's frustrating when our best efforts to help people fail. But if we could see life through their weary eyes and experience their trials with the same frayed emotions, we might understand why.

A person imbued with compassion and self-understanding can readily love oneself and exhibit endless sympathy for all people. A person who is unkind to their self can never transcend their corrupt barriers much less run into the world with open arms enthusiastically embracing humankind and all of nature with uninhibited friendliness and goodwill.

I had shelved expectations of another kiss

A neon-pink 3 flickered and instantly disappeared again into the dark. The sight of it on my own device now made me sick. I held my finger down on the menu screen; each little app logo began to vibrate. I deleted the 3. I contemplated deleting everything. Cleaning it all away. The idea had a charm, a self-cancellation, many little suicides, a way to dispatch myself without actually going anywhere.

It is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought.

I mean, you may cause others a spot of bother by your weaknesses, perhaps, but coping with you may possibly increase their strength and sympathy. But if you sin deliberately, even if it seems only against yourself--well--you won't be the only one to suffer. You may even be the one who suffers least.

What really arouses indignation against suffering is not suffering as such but the senselessness of suffering...

It is easy to tell the toiler How best he can carry his packBut no one can rate a burden's weightUntil it has been on his back

Be the person you needed when you needed help.

My reputation is largely the creature of the kindly imaginings of my flock, whom I chose not to disillusion, in part because the truth had the kind of pathos in it that would bring on sympathy in its least bearable forms.

I bask in that sympathy because it's nice to have somebody who cares, even if it's the wrong person for the wrong reasons.

[Sylvia Plath] was now far along a peculiarly solitary road on which not many would risk following her. So it was important for her to know that her messages were coming back clear and strong. Yet not even her determinedly bright self-reliance could disguise the loneliness that came from her almost palpably, like a heat haze. She asked for neither sympathy nor help but, like bereaved widow at a wake, she simply wanted company in her mourning.

No one has ever properly understood me, I have never fully understood anyone; and no one understands anyone else

Like crying wolf, if you keep looking for sympathy as a justification for your actions, you will someday be left standing alone when you really need help.

The glory of fame isn't in having so many people know you, but in having so many people know you care. Otherwise, it's like being drawn to a fire to find no warmth.

Act like you care. Pray like you care. Speak, smile, reach out, and live like you care. _The point is to make sure those in your life know beyond doubt that you do care.

Don't act so callous to blank out good friends who failed on their way to success, just because something unusual hindered them, but you meandered out by a stroke of luck.