Atom Egoyan Quotes

I show them the funny part, the silly part, the laughing part, the crazy part and then the really deep, deep part where I'm talking from my heart to these people. Because I've been through everything they've been through.

"Cammie!" I'll never forget the tone of Macey's voice in that moment. "Cam," she said slowly, moving toward me, "I know how it feels to be watched every second of every day. I know what it's like to trust fewer and fewer people until it seems like you are completely alone in the world. I know you think the only things that are left in your life are the bad things. I know what you're feeling, Cam." Her hands were on my shoulders. Her blue eyes were staring into mine. "I know."

When a person realizes he has been deeply heard, his eyes moisten. I think in some real sense he is weeping for joy. It is as though he were saying, "Thank God, somebody heard me. Someone knows what it's like to be me".

I think more than anything, people just want to be understood.

I think laughter between people is a holy form of connection, of communion. It's the way you and I look at each other and without words, say, I get exactly what you're saying. And so, it's important to me.

He shook his head. “No. Because there's no one else out there who understands you like I do.” I waited for more. “That's it? You're not going to elaborate on what that means?” Those green eyes held me. “I don't think I need to.

I think sometimes the very reason we go through something is so that we can be empathetic with another person later on.

Under the imaginary table that separates me from my readers, don’t we secretly clasp each other’s hands?

I cannot cure everybody. I cannot help everybody. But to tell the lonely person that I am not far or different from that lonely person, that I am with him or her, that's all I think we can do and we should do.

I believe the greatest gift I can conceive of having from anyone is to be seen by them, heard by them, to be understood and touched by them.

I think when you've gone through a betrayal in life then when somebody's been betrayed you can talk to the person about it. If your husband's been unfaithful to you, you know what that's like, you know how that feels. You can share true empathy with someone.

I always hope that people feel less alone when they see a movie that I make. That some part of the story played out on the big screen will resonate for individuals in the audience in a way that gives them comfort.

Empathy is the faculty to resonate with the feelings of others. When we meet someone who is joyful, we smile. When we witness someone in pain, we suffer in resonance with his or her suffering.

Readers prefer a world they can relate to.

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.

The great thing about a song is that no one has to know your story. But if you tell it in a way that has clarity and means something to somebody else, then it can apply to their story.

All I want is for people, when they read my books, to feel companioned, to feel they're not alone in the world.

When you're watching somebody read your material and they smile and nod, you know you've found that place where your experience and their experience match, even though they aren't the same exact experience.

All art to me is an empathetic act. Whoever's telling a story is trying to transfer emotion into someone else.

I think that's what poetry does. It allows people to come together and identify with a common thing that is outside of themselves, but which they identify with from the interior.

Above all, I try to create an emotion to which others can respond.

Anyway, stories bring us together to find common ground, to find our way through life together, or just to entertain us, and I am just thrilled to be a part of that process.

Well, I was a big fan of the book and therein a huge fan of the girl Precious. And so I felt like I knew this girl. I felt like I'd grown up alongside her. I felt like she was in my family. She was my friend and she was like people I didn't want to be friends with.

Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person they are almost indistinguishable.

I'm drawn to people who share that sense of loss. All actors are trying to repair damaged relationships. I think that might be why I've been drawn to other actors.