“The heart of manipulation is to empathize without being touched.”

— Vernor Vinge , A Fire Upon the Deep (1st edition)

Source: A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), Chapter 37 (p. 519).

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Vernor Vinge 34

American mathematician, computer scientist, and science fic… 1944

Ralph Smart

“There is relationship between sight and touch, something about eyes being able to see through the fingers touching the clay, about fingers being able to feel what the eyes are seeing without the fingers actually touching it.”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 20 (Vintage 2003)

“Is it really not possible to touch the gaming table without being instantly infected by superstition?”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Gambler

The Gambler (1866)

“If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel.”

Azar Nafisi book Reading Lolita in Tehran

Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)
Context: A novel is not an allegory... It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. So start breathing.