If you have never suffered through it, then you don’t understand it. There are no exceptions.

You cannot fully understand a person's need until you have endured the same need. As hard as you may try to predict and comprehend their situation and suffering, I guarantee you'll fall short until you've been there.

For things I am not thankful for―experiences I would never volunteer to relive―I recognize how they have changed me. My depth of compassion and humility, the sincerity of my empathy and understanding, and the duration of my patience have all been refined by bitter suffering. I thank God for the lessons learned. I am a better person for it, but I still abhor those awful trials.

I could really use someone else's smile today.

Sometimes all you can do is hug a friend tightly and wish that their pain could be transferred by touch to your own emotional hard drive.

If we simply imagined that everyone who crossed our path was living out his or her very last day on Earth, we might treat people as kindly as we ought to each day they lived.

Sympathy is imagining the pain. Empathy is having suffered through it first.

I felt sad.I felt cold.I felt hurt.I felt forsaken and lonely.I felt doubtful and hesitant.I felt scared and deeply worried. I felt different, unknown, and unwelcome.I felt empty and woefully neglected.I felt weak and intimidated.I felt withdrawn and shy.I felt utterly hopeless.Then you held my hand, and I felt better.

The glory of fame isn't in having so many people know you, but in having so many people know you care. Otherwise, it's like being drawn to a fire to find no warmth.