Tom King Quotes

Empathy is the most mysterious transaction that the human soul can have, and it's accessible to all of us, but we have to give ourselves the opportunity to identify, to plunge ourselves in a story where we see the world from the bottom up or through another's eyes or heart.

Stories teach us empathy. They reveal to us ourselves in the skins of others.

How can you build something for someone else if you don't have enough familiarity with them to imagine the world through their eyes?

It is human nature to imagine, to put yourself in another's shoes. The past may be another country. But the only passport required is empathy.

Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.

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.

It is literature which for me opened the mysterious and decisive doors of imagination and understanding. To see the way others see. To think the way others think. And above all, to feel.

It's hard to put yourself in someone else's head.

By recognizing your own vulnerability you can recognize and identify with the vulnerability in others.

You have to be able to imagine lives that are not yours.

Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else's shoes for a while.

Imaginative empathy is one of the great gifts that humans have, and it means that we can live more than one life. We can picture what it would be like from another perspective.

I taught myself to tune in to another person's wavelength, figure out what they were looking for, and try to project that thing back at them.

Walk a mile in my shoes is good advice. Our children will learn to respect others if they are used to imagining themselves in another's place.

You rehear your life by reading about what happens to other people.

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.

I like feeling my way into different minds and experiences. It comes naturally and always has.

Writing really evokes empathy in a way very few things can do.

We must put ourselves in the place of those who are to hear us

I feel like I'm an actor that likes to have lots of points of connection.

With every character, the first thing I want to feel is empathy.

If I had to name my superpower, it's probably empathy.

The unique thing that literature provides is to be able to step so fully into another situation and condition.

If we know how to listen to our own heart, we can listen to the hearts of others.

In order to get inside their skin, I have to identify with them. That includes even the ones who are complete bastards, nasty, twisted, deeply flawed human beings with serious psychological problems. Even them. When I get inside their skin and look out through their eyes, I have to feel a certain - if not sympathy, certainly empathy for them. I have to try to perceive the world as they do, and that creates a certain amount of affection.