Sarah Dessen Quotes

If you've been there, no explanation is necessary. If you haven't, none is adequate.

I think I can connect with an audience because I know what it's like to be on the other side of it and I really remember all of that.

Writing is weaponized empathy. It's putting yourself in someone else's head. It's finding what's in them that relates to you.

but you could also look at it the other way. Like you’re saying no matter how bad things are for you, I can still relate.

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.

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.

I traffic in empathy. I try to be vulnerable with people so they can be vulnerable back. I've always been searching for empathy in other people. It's when I feel most not alone.

Poetry is partly sympathy, don't you think? If it's any good, it gets people to think about others' points of view.

It is easier to speak to those who have had similar experiences than to those who are as yet ignorant.

How can you expect a man who's warm to understand one who's cold?

I can spend 10 to 15 minutes with someone, and they can tell me what they're going through. I may never have gone through that, but I get it on a really deep level.

I find it strange when people can't relate to kids, because you were a kid once, you know?

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.

Nobody is so weird others can't identify with them.

I try to communicate in a way that allows people in on what's going on. What's better than references to popular culture?

Part of the allure of watching characters on-screen is to be able to put yourself in his or her shoes or to be able to relate to what he or she is going through or what he or she is thinking.

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.

When you are in someone's home, in their bed, you see the world from their eyes. You understand 'the other' is not so other.

When you read about the lives of other people, people of different circumstances or similar circumstances, you are part of their lives for that moment. You inhabit their lives, and you feel what they're feeling, and that is compassion. If we see that reading does allow us that, we see how absolutely essential reading is.

The adage is true: Walk a mile in my shoes - or drive a mile in my car. There is nothing quite like sitting in the seat yourself.

You can relate to someone with a flaw.

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

When you relate to a disease, you're afraid. When you relate to a person, there is compassion. You see someone that is like you, that could be like you. You can see yourself in that same situation.

You can't have empathy for somebody that's gone through something you haven't - because, definitionally, you can't. But you can feel for them and have sympathy for them. And that's what this country needs to practice more. It's about realizing that you do come from a different place.

A lot of people can relate to me.