John Steinbeck Quotes

One of the things I found is that the things we want to say for well-intentioned motives often cause more harm than good. People don't need our words. They mainly need our presence, they need our love. And if you come in too quickly with explanations, you may do more harm than good.

Before you do something to help, your presence already can bring some relief.

My mother was all about unconditional love, and I don't think we give that to our patients a lot. At the end of the day, what they really need you to do is to look at them in the eye and say, 'I'm here for you. I'm going to make sure this works out.'

You need somebody just to say, 'Hey, I'm here for you. Do you need anything?' If you can get somebody like that, you can make it, no question about it. You can make it.

Would it help if I stood around uselessly not knowing what to say?

Sometimes the only thing you could do for people was to be there.

In deep pain, people don't need logic, advice, encouragement, or even Scripture. They just need you to show up and shut up.

All you can do for another person is be an environment in which if they wanted to come up for air, they could.

Sometimes being a good friend means saying nothing.

Sometimes, the best way to help someone is just to be near them.

A women under stress is not immediately concerned with finding solutions to her problems but rather seeks relief by expressing herself and being understood.

I've never made a penny being a doctor, so that makes it not a job. My sense of a doctor is that one is a presence caring for health. So I'm never not a doctor. People call me from all over the world who are hurting, and I care for them. Chatting is what more people want than anything.

What air is to the body, to feel understood is to the heart.

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.

When you are in trouble, people who call to sympathize are really looking for the particulars.

The strong bond of friendship is not always a balanced equation; friendship is not always about giving and taking in equal shares. Instead, friendship is grounded in a feeling that you know exactly who will be there for you when you need something, no matter what or when.

But when they needed love or help or had a problem of any kind, they could always go to Roselle because she was always there for them. That was not always the case with me.

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.

I know what it takes to be a good boyfriend. Time, first and foremost. To be there for someone and be involved in their life.

If you're an older sibling and you have a younger sibling who needs mentoring or is afraid of the dark, you develop nurturing and empathic skills that you wouldn't otherwise have.

When a friend is sick, I see the situation for what it is, not what it isn't, and I offer to help as much as she wants, not as much as I want.

Time, presence and physical attentiveness are our most basic proxies for something ultimately unprovable: that we are understood.

People in grief need someone to walk with them without judging them.

We do not need answers or formulas to minister in crisis.

I'm not looking for sympathy at all.