Stephanie Beatriz Quotes

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.

I love meeting new people; I think everyone has a story to tell. We should all listen sometimes.

The strength of fiction is not in reading about yourself, but in reading about other people.

Stories teach us empathy. They reveal to us ourselves in the skins of others.

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?

To me, this is the singular privilege of reading literature: we are allowed to step into another's life.

Be kind. It's worthwhile to make an effort to learn about other people and figure out what you might have in common with them. If you allow yourself to be somewhat curious - and if you get into the habit of doing that - it's the first step to being open minded and realizing that your points of view aren't totally opposite.

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.

This is what I tell my students: step outside of your tiny little world. Step inside of the tiny little world of somebody else. And then do it again and do it again and do it again. And suddenly, all these tiny little worlds, they come together in this complex web. And they build a big, complex world.

As a writer and as a reader, I really believe in the power of narrative to allow us ways to experience life beyond our own, ways to reflect on things that have happened to us and a chance to engage with the world in ways that transcend time and gender and all sorts of things.

I try to make my books reflect humanity as I see it.

I think there's an ongoing effort involved in trying to get a bigger perspective, trying to let go of things that limit your capacity to love and be loved or your capacity to hear and to really speak.

It's often difficult to get perspective on your own stories, on your own experiences, without talking them through with someone who is genuinely interested in thinking about them. And that's the key.

I hope that doing truthful portrayals of people in a variety of circumstances gives people a kind of subterranean link to those characters.

It is literature which for me opened the mysterious and decisive doors of imagination and understanding. To see the way others see. To think the way others think. And above all, to feel.

It's great to express yourself and tell other people's stories and get into the minds of people who aren't like you.

Our uniqueness, our individuality, and our life experience molds us into fascinating beings. I hope we can embrace that. I pray we may all challenge ourselves to delve into the deepest resources of our hearts to cultivate an atmosphere of understanding, acceptance, tolerance, and compassion. We are all in this life together.

My only job is to write in such a way that the reader gets a new handle on humanity.

I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.

Only through art can we emerge from ourselves and know what another person sees.

When you connect to someone on a human level, and you get to know about them, you can begin to love the things that make them different.

Every person you meet has a story.

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

I always look for stories that really try to tell the world that I see, a world that values and is full, in fact, of stories that are important.

I don't believe people are interested in dates and facts. I don't think it is interesting to say what it is to be this person or that, but I do believe it is entertaining and perhaps even of value to express how it is to be that person.