Harvey Pekar Quotes

I could only try to comfort the women that I came face-to-face with. I was really moved by how much they wanted to talk, how much they needed to be comforted, and how happy they were that we were there.

Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand.

Despair is despair, sorrow is sorrow, death is death. It's not about who is experiencing it; it's about building a bridge of empathy across these experiences.

I say let's respond as best we can to the victims and their families.

Sympathy is charming, but it does not make up for pain.

Always the aim for me is making people feel like they are not alone. That's just the greatest feeling.

Affliction's sons are brothers in distress; A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!

For example, when my mother died, the people who showed up just to put an apron on to cook, people who really do the right thing, so to speak, as my momma would always say to show that they care, a sense of community that we've lost so much in our country.

In a place of pain, there is space for everyone.

Empathy, humanity and support for each other is more important than revenue, than growth.

One of my impulses in acting has always to make people feel less alone.

You need someone there that gets what you're going through.

Empathy has the power to bring together people who would otherwise never meet. It has the power to teach us and to reach us in moments of isolation when we think nobody understands.

I think I felt very alone for a lot of my life, but once I was able to share my story more and more, and people wouldn't say, 'Hey, I felt sorry for you,' but, 'I get it, and I understand you,' it kind of encouraged me to tell it more. I just don't want people to feel alone.

consolation is a beautiful word. everyone skins his knee-that doesnt make yours hurt anyless.

It makes me feel good to have some comforting effect on someone that needs comfort.

So after being with somebody for any number of days like that, you can't help but feel for them. You can't help them, but you certainly can root for them.

I traffic in empathy. I try to be vulnerable with people so they can be vulnerable back. I've always been searching for empathy in other people. It's when I feel most not alone.

Poetry is partly sympathy, don't you think? If it's any good, it gets people to think about others' points of view.

I have learned that there is more power in a good strong hug than in a thousand meaningful words.

You can relate to somebody's pain and you have compassion, which can lead to intimacy.

Compassion is a call, a demand of nature, to relieve the unhappy as hunger is a natural call for food.

If you have the support of people with a heart and a brain, then you're good.

People talked to me in a way I think they would not have talked to somebody who hadn't shared the experience; they gave me their papers, they gave me their diaries. I found people constantly opening up to me. And I think they did because I had shared that experience with them.

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