A Quote by Benjamin Percy

Writing is an act of empathy. You are occupying and understanding a point of view that might be alien to your own--and work is often the keyhole through which you peer. — © Benjamin Percy
Writing is an act of empathy. You are occupying and understanding a point of view that might be alien to your own--and work is often the keyhole through which you peer.
Time is a keyhole.... We sometimes bend and peer through it. And the wind we feel on our cheeks when we do--the wind that blows through the keyhole--is the breath of all the living universe.
One of the things that's attractive about cyberspace is that it can be construed as no threat. If you see it through the video game keyhole, the amusement keyhole, the entertainment keyhole, it is no threat. If you see it through the LSD keyhole, the consciousness-expanding keyhole, it's like electronic drugs: it is a threat.
Read. It makes you more intelligent. It’s that simple. We all see the universe through the tiny keyhole of our own eyes, and every book is another keyhole from which you can gaze.
I think that the best movies are made, not from a point of view that depends on your personal history, whether it's the color of your skin or the politics that you had or the place that you come from, but from a point of view of an understanding of human nature, an understanding of history, and an understanding of what motivates people.
The great thing is the thing of being able to see things through many points of view. That's enlarging. I mean, it saves you from ultimately from the boredom of having one point of view, like being locked in a room with nothing but your own point of view, your own references.
If writing really is empathy, then understanding your place in society might actually help you achieve it.
I started writing a novel from the monster's point of view. It has its own difficulties but, I'm ashamed to say, it's much easier writing from a psychopath's point of view than from that of their empathetic opposite.
Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing. Instead of offering empathy, we often have a strong urge to give advice or reassurance and to explain our own position or feeling. Empathy, however, calls upon us to empty our mind and listen to others with our whole being.
The essential qualities of a true Pan Americanism must be the same as those which constitute a good neighbor; namely, mutual understanding, and through such understanding, a sympathetic appeciation of the other's point of view. It is only in this manner that we can hope to build up a system of which confidence, friendship, and good will are the cornerstones.
From my point of view, which is the point of view of no illusions, there is only winning and losing. You might as well be a winner.
All writing, all art, is an act of faith. If one tries to contribute to human understanding, how can that be called decadent? It's like saying a declaration of love is an act of decadence. Any work of art, provide it springs from a sincere motivation to further understanding between people, is an act of faith and therefore is an act of love.
Empathy is a human trait. But lots of humans exercise some traits more energetically than others. By "the usefulness of empathy" I mean the way in which a progressive might claim that empathy is a crucial aspect of any benign political system, and the way a conservative might argue that not only is it not necessary, but it might not even be all that helpful, in that regard.
If you attack a mathematical problem directly, very often you come to a dead end, nothing you do seems to work and you feel that if only you could peer round the corner there might be an easy solution. There is nothing like having somebody else beside you, because he can usually peer round the corner.
But I am sure also that from a political point of view, and from a social point of view the federal link, without infringing the sovereignty of any of the nations which might take part in such as association, could be beneficial.
What is a scientist after all? It is a curious man looking through a keyhole, the keyhole of nature, trying to know what's going on.
There was an age in which it was clear to me that my parents weren't perfect, but then there was an age at which I had empathy for that. And that was through therapy, probably. You have to rebuild and you also have to grow in your understanding of whatever it is your parents are facing, and that takes a major, profound shift of perspective from being a child.
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