Tarana Burke Quotes

No matter what you go through, if it's the truth, 9 times out of 10, somebody else has been through the same thing or is currently going through the same thing.

I feel that if I'm going through something, I'm sure someone else is, too.

If we're by ourselves we come to feel crazy and alone. We need to make alternate families of small groups of women who support each other, talk to each other regularly, can speak their truths and their experiences and find they're not alone in them, that other women have them, too ... It makes such a huge difference.

It's often just enough to be with someone. I don't need to touch them. Not even talk. A feeling passes between you both. You're not alone.

I chose to present myself as one who comes from among the people, and I can be touched by their pain because I have my own.

When you listen to other women's stories you begin to understand your own better and you begin to find ways back through and with each other.

Just because you don't know if other people are experiencing the same thing as you are, it doesn't mean that it's not happening. Everybody doesn't necessarily share everything. Just know that what you're going through, other people are going through it, too.

A problem shared is attention gained.

We have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community.

I will always stay close to all compatriots, and share together the happiness and suffering.

There's a sense of aliveness that comes from connection, shared experience. And you see it in every place. You see it when ball players jump up and down, gather at home plate, hugging, and it's not just because they're winning, it's that shared moment, that feeling of - we enter the world alone, we leave alone.

I'm not a politician. I only want to help relieve the suffering in communities, and I want to help people see their community in each other.

I don't want to be above my audience; I want to be one with my audience.

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

Above all things let us never forget that mankind constitutes one great brotherhood; all born to encounter suffering and sorrow, and therefore bound to sympathize with each other.

It's group therapy for the world.

People could empathize with other people who had gone through the same experience as they had.

It's exhilarating to read something that tells you that people saw something and felt something that you thought was so discreet. When they relate you to some of their own fantasies of who or how some actresses should be in movies. That's really kind of sweet!

I feel the reason people started using 'me too' is there is beauty and power in those words.

It's one thing to talk to a vet about something, but when you're talking to a fellow rookie going through the same struggles you are, you kind of understand it - and you grow together like that.

You cry the first tear because something is genuinely, singularly upsetting. And you cry the second tear because everybody is crying that first tear with you, and you know that.

I feel like it's my duty to keep it real for my community of moms out there for both my own peace of mind and the fact that some of you may be going through or have experienced what I am!

That's my message: I'm not alone, and neither is anyone else.

I feel we have the opportunity of being part of a new and emerging category for human co-experience.

When you talk, you realize that the pains and worries you feel are universal; you no longer feel alone in your sadness. You relate and find comfort in the fact that there are other women going through the same things as you are.