Junot Diaz Quotes

I see myself as a witness to humanity.

I always feel that life can teach you how to act. I'm always looking at life through other people's eyes. By feeling empathy. And I do feel that I am constantly learning.

I have labored carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate, but to understand human actions

He who sees without loving is only straining his eyes in the darkness.

Our job is not to set things right but to see them right.

I'm sensitive to the things I see.

Wise is the man who does not disdain any character and instead, examining him with a searching look, plumbs him to the very main-springs of his being.

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

I wanted to write about looking at the world, so it's more about helping people, or persuading people, to see what is around us; both the marvellous and the terrible.

I would like to think that as a result of not just my own experiences, but at least being empathetic and compassionate about other people's experiences and plights and tragedies, that I am affected by it and learn from it.

Literature seems to offer lessons in human nature that help us decode the world around us and be better friends.

I think the virtue I prize above all others is curiosity. If you look really hard at almost anybody, and try to see why they're doing what they're doing, taking a dig at them ceases to be what you want to do even if you hate them.

When you have a fresh point of view that comes from the right side of the heart, it's just so valuable. You can take it or not take it, but just that perspective can give you a lot of strength or make you reflect on a lot of things.

Your funny gets developed pretty early on. Comedy requires that you understand as much as possible about the viewpoints of all people and everything that's going on around you. It genuinely requires a true point of view, a real sense of your own view of things in the world.

When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.

It's only possible to see people when one is able to see the world as others see it.

O, would some Power give us, To see ourselves as others see us!

To understand another human being you must gain some insight into the conditions which made him what he is.

People treat serious subjects so seriously, which is so obvious a way of dealing with them. I'm always thinking that the best way of dealing with them is to show people as human beings.

As you grow older, you start looking at the bigger picture. You don't look at only yourself.

A helpful thing for me has always been - this is from a great acting teacher Declan Donnellan - is this beautiful way of expressing how and why people do things that other people may not do. It's a simple sentence that says, 'I understand you; you don't understand me.'

Stick to the man who looks out of the window and tries to understand the world. Keep clear of the man who looks in at the window and tries to understand you.

Can you step back from your own mind and thus understand all things?

The writer is a person who is standing apart, like the cheese in 'The Farmer in the Dell' standing there alone but deciding to take a few notes. You’re outside, but you can see things up close through your binoculars. Your job is to present clearly your viewpoint, your line of vision. Your job is to see people as they really are, and to do this, you have to know who you are in the most compassionate possible sense. Then you can recognize others.

I couldn't be sufficiently interested in human beings to be a writer if I had contempt for human beings.