“ Though there might not be any easy answers to the problem of poverty, its most compelling scribes do not resign themselves to representation solely for the sake of those age-old verities of truth and… Leslie Jamison
“ Bad movies and bad writing and easy cliches still manage to make us feel things toward each other. Part of me is disgusted by this. Part of me celebrates it. Leslie Jamison
“ I loved the full heat of being drunk, like I was made of melting chocolate and spreading in all directions. Leslie Jamison
“ The pain is what you make of it. You have to find something in it that yields. I understood my guiding imperative as: keep bleeding, but find some love in the blood. Leslie Jamison
“ Bolivian women sewed their lips shut for days. They threaded needles through their skin to stop their speech, to show what good speaking had done them. Leslie Jamison
“ Metaphors are tiny saviors leading the way out of sentimentality, small disciples of Pound, urging "Say it new! Say it new!" It's hard for emotion to feel flat if its language is suitably novel, to fe… Leslie Jamison
“ That was a moment where something clarified about shame for me: it’s not just something negative but some kind of arrow, it’s pointing at something, some confusing blend of fear and desire. There was… Leslie Jamison
“ It's easier, somehow, if there's a reason for tragedy - lust or jealousy or hatred or revenge. We can find in these explanations an emotional tenor commensurate with the gravity of the act. There's so… 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. Empathy requires knowing you know nothing. Empathy means… Leslie Jamison
“ This is the grand fiction of tourism, that bringing our bodies somewhere draws that place closer to us, or we to it. It's a quick fix of empathy. Leslie Jamison
“ Empathy isn't just listening, it's asking the questions whose answers need to be listened to. Leslie Jamison
“ 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. Leslie Jamison
“ We like who we become in response to injustice: it makes it easy to choose a side. Our capacity to care, to get angry, is called forth like some muscle we weren't entirely aware we had. Leslie Jamison
“ Imagining someone else's pain with too much surety can be as damaging as failing to imagine it. Leslie Jamison
“ Empathy is a kind of care but it’s not the only kind of care, and it’s not always enough. Leslie Jamison
“ Empathy means realizing no trauma has discrete edges. Trauma bleeds. out of wounds and across boundaries. Sadness becomes seizure. Empathy demands another kind of porousness in response. My Stephanie… Leslie Jamison
“ I didn't enjoy what was happening but I enjoyed who I was while I was watching it. It offered evidence of my own inclination toward empathy. Leslie Jamison
“ Sure, some news is bigger news than other news. War is bigger news than a girl having mixed feelings about the way some guy fucked her and didn't call. But I don't believe in a finite economy of empat… Leslie Jamison
