Jan Brett Quotes

Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.

Men can be tender, too.

I'm a sensitive person.

That only shows you have no heart,’ she said. But her eyes said that she knew he had a heart, and that was why she was afraid of him

The good enough parent, in addition to being convinced that whatever his child does, he does it because at that moment he is convinced this is the best he can do, will also ask himself: "What in the world would make me act as my child acts at this moment? And if I felt forced to act this way, what would make me feel better about it?

I'm nice with damn kids, man. Kids love me. I can bounce back and forth. I can discipline kids and I can get into the mind of a kid.

Leave your pride, ego, and narcissism somewhere else. Reactions from those parts of you will reinforce your children's most primitive fears.

being physically intimidating didn't keep you from getting your feelings hurt. Everyone's heart is the same size.

You might think I'm bulletproof, but I'm not.

Gideon knew exactly what I liked. Not because I’d told him, but because he paid attention to everything about me.

In our relationship with children and young people, we are not dealing with mechanical devices that can be quickly repaired, but with living beings who are impressionable, volatile, sensitive, afraid, affectionate; and to deal with them we have to have great understanding, the strength of patience and love.

Imagine you are walking in the woods and you see a small dog sitting by a tree. As you approach it, it suddenly lunges at you, teeth bared. You are frightened and angry. But then you notice that one of its legs is caught in a trap. Immediately your mood shifts from anger to concern: You see that the dog's aggression is coming from a place of vulnerability and pain. This applies to all of us. When we behave in hurtful ways, it is because we are caught in some kind of trap. The more we look through the eyes of wisdom at ourselves and one another, the more we cultivate a compassionate heart.

One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human. One of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them.

Nature, in giving tears to man, confessed that he Had a tender heart; this is our noblest quality.

I'm not this tough guy, I'm not this super hard person.

I remember one time I tried to pity this fool. He told me his name was Jeff. He was married. He pulled out his wallet and showed me three pictures of his kids; Kelly, Robert, Brittany. Real cute kids. Don't get too close man. It's hard to pity a fool if you get too close.

When we talk about compassion we talk in terms of being kind. But compassion is not so much being kind; it is being creative [enough] to wake a person up

Linda seemed to recognize loneliness. Possibly she could see it sitting opposite her, sipping lager and trying not to lose its temper. It was an illness, loneliness-it made you weak, gullible, feebleminded.

An understanding heart is everything in a teacher, and cannot be esteemed highly enough.

I think when someone blindly projects and it's showing up in the form of envy or hate - and I actually think they're synonymous - that's when I feel the most afraid and disconnected and vulnerable. Like whenever I don't feel safe in my own hands, in terms of my not being tender or merciful with myself, or when we're treating each other that way.

It takes skill to be real. Time to heal each other

[T]he unsympathetic assessments we make of others are usually the result of nothing more sinister than our habit of looking at them in the wrong way, through lenses clouded by distraction, exhaustion and fear, which blind us to the fact that they are really, despite a thousand differences, just altered versions of ourselves: fellow fragile, uncertain, flawed beings likewise craving love and in urgent need of forgiveness.

Hale, stop it.” Kat reached out and grabbed his arm. “You are many things, but stupid isn't one of them.” “I'm too close.” “You don't get it, do you? Being close is good. Caring is good. I love that you're emotional and passionate and can't turn these things off.” “It makes me a bad thief.” “It makes you a good person.

We can not understand each other, if our sympathies are always safely tucked away; we can not understand each other, if our approaches are always academic or conventional; we can not understand each other, if we crawl back into our shells every time we see a worm across our path.

We may not always see eye to eye, but we can try to see heart to heart.