Claire Danes Quotes

I always want people to experience the feelings I am experiencing. Anything I can do to get you to feel, that's an honor and a duty that I take very seriously.

The character is close to me, except that I haven't lived through those situations, so it's not completely me.

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

Because I'm highly empathetic, it's easy for me to put myself in the character's shoes. It's, you know, finding the truth of the moment.

Acting is not hiding to me; it's revealing. We give you license to feel. 'Hey, she's crying, so it's okay if I cry, too.' That's the most important thing in the world, because when you stop feeling, that's when you're dead.

Love is to understand, at last, the suffering of another.

Love does not to be understood. It needs only to be shown.

...to make art is to realize another's sadness within, realize the hidden sadness in other people's lives, to feel sad with and for a stranger.

Sympathy is the golden key that unlocks the hearts of others.

Empathy is not as complicated when you have some aspects in common with your character; it's not impossible to know someone who's like you in many ways but different in one. This is true especially if you are a reader. Reading makes you accustomed to inhabiting other lives and sensibilities.

We can empathize as deeply as we can empathize.

With my writing, what I want to do is humanize the young people I write about.

Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation. This is what I try to tell my students: this is one great thing that literature can do - it can make us identify with situations and people far away.

Those who would make us feel, must feel themselves.

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.

On 'Awkward,' we really like to send the message out that we're relatable, and that we get what people are going through.

I cry when I feel moved by incredible generosity or a connection to someone. We spend so much of our lives being separated. It's the relief of connection that produces the tears.

I love relatable stories.

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

It's a terrific privilege to be able to see into somebody else's life.

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

I'm curious about other people. That's the essence of my acting. I'm interested in what it would be like to be you.

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.

I think we've all been kind of... everyone's been hurt, everyone's felt loss, everyone has exultation, everyone has a need to be loved, or to have lost love, so when you play a character, you're pulling out those little threads and turning them up a bit.

As an actor, what you dream of is being able to portray people that people empathize with and understand and really feel for.