“It's the hardest thing in the world to go on being aware of someone else's pain.”
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Pat Barker 2
British writer 1943Related quotes
“Tis the hardest thing in the world to be a good Thinker, without being a strong Self-Examiner.”
Vol. 1, p. 92; "Soliloquy: or Advice to an Author".
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711)
“The closest thing to being cared for is to care for someone else.”
Source: The Square Root of Wonderful
“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to someone else.”
Source: First Love
“Communication, hardest thing in the world.”
Jim Carrey's Unnatural Act (1991)
Context: Communication, hardest thing in the world. Y'know, I can look at you guys, I can communicate to you all night, but, one-on-one, I'm terrible. It's just, there's certain things about communicating that really bother me. Like whenever I meet somebody new I say, "Hi! How are you!" Most of the time when people hear that they'll say, "Good! And yourself?", or "Fine! Thank you very much!" But sometimes they like to surprise you, "I've got no dream, man! I'm all dead inside!"
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2010
Context: I'm wondering how the new crop of teens and twentysomethings became so afraid of emotion and the expression thereof.* Did their parents teach them? Did they learn it somewhere else? Is this a spontaneous cultural phenomenon? Are they afraid of appearing weak? Is this capitalism streamlining the human psyche to be more useful by eliminating anything that might hamper productivity? Is it a sort of conformism? I don't know, but I could go the rest of my life and never again hear anyone whine about someone else being "emo," and it would be a Very Good Thing.
