Empathy

Every person, every question, every tragedy, even every victory — they all have nuance. Pay attention to the nuance.

Whatever holds us together now, whatever makes us stronger, brings us together, binds us close right now is good and necessary and must be encouraged with whatever it takes.

We will all be measured by how much we contribute to the success of the people around us.

When you listen — when you really listen to people, when you listen as fiercely as you want to be heard, when you respect the idea that you are sharing the earth with other humans, when you lead with your nice foot forward, you'll win every time.

In my life, there is only one concept that I have determined. It's that everything is gray. Every person, every question, every tragedy, even every victory — they all have nuance. Pay attention to the nuance.

Your legacy is every life that you touch.

It is not only the bomb or the bully that should keep us up at night — it is also the garden untilled and the newcomer unwelcomed, the neighbor unhoused and the prisoner unheard.

You were never Little Red Riding Hood. You were always the wolf.

You will not always be the goal scorer. And when you are not, you better be rushing toward her.

Healing our country is going to take what I call radical empathy. This is a moment to reach across divides of race, class, and politics, to try to see the world through the eyes of people very different from ourselves.

I wish someone had told me at my own commencement that the one and only requirement for graduation was that I had to emerge out of the closed, cordoned-off space of my own head. I had to learn to listen.

We are the only species that can learn to think like another of our own species; the only one that records and remembers its history; the only one that tries to decipher the laws of the universe.