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Quote by Charles M. Blow

“One doesn’t have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy and understanding are sufficient.”

Quote by Charles M. Blow

Author

Charles M. Blow
Charles M. Blow

Charles M. Blow is an American journalist born on August 11, 1970. He is known for his column in The New York Times, which focuses on racial, political, and social issues. more

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“He seized me as boldly as a tiger captures his prey. There was no escape. And I didn't want to. I would have happily died in his clutches. I was his, and he made sure I knew it. My heart burst with a thousand beautiful blooms, all tiger lilies. And I knew with a certainty more powerful than anything I'd ever felt before that we belonged together. He finally lifted his head and murmured against my lips, "It's about bloody time, woman.”

“I squinted at every dappled leaf in the mulberry wood, hoping to see leopard eyes looking back. Imagine how unlikely it is for two creatures of any kind to see each other--through the shadows of the woods--eyes connecting, attention ready. For a moment like that all the universe would have to conspire to move all its pieces and line them up just so. I think a person gets seen, really looked at, looked into, seen the way a leopard would see into you, maybe ten times in their entire life. And even then, who knows what a leopard would be thinking.”

“Stories are not confrontational. Storytelling is about entering the mind of your audience so that they connect the dots, according to the pattern you want them to see.”

“Julie Plec: She's staring up longingly and you realize this is a character that wants something, that needs something emotionally. She is being driven by a deeply personal want here, and that sort of became the rule on the show that if you have a villain, the villain has to be the hero of their own story, they have to have a deeply personal rooting interest. That's the moment where I fell in love with Katherine as a hero of her own story. I had so much empathy for her in that moment.”

“I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, New Age term that—it does a lot of damage. But it is very effective when it comes to politics. When Bill Clinton said, 'I feel your pain,' that was a brilliant political move. It was total nonsense, but it worked. I prefer sympathy. Sympathy is a much better word. Sympathy is saying, 'I’m sorry for what you’re going through, I’m going to try to help you.' Empathy is like, 'I’m going to become you, I’m going to feel exactly what you’re feeling.' It’s impossible, it’s narcissistic, and it’s destructive.”

“The Old Oak died just after sunset that day to an audience of a hundred pilots, all of them long dead and somehow all killing. None of them wept for her, not even Paxton, force-fed so much emotion he had no time to digest. But he could pity, and he did - he pitied the life she had lived and the future they had created for her. But not pity, no. She didn't deserve pity. The Old Oak deserved love, and he did, he loved her.”