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The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.

Writing really evokes empathy in a way very few things can do.

I have a great deal of empathy for anyone who's having a hard time. I believe this ability to see another's viewpoint has served me well as a writer.

Fiction and essays can create empathy for the theoretical stranger.

We seek to craft characters who inspire empathy: characters our audience will care for and, as a result, will care about what happens to them and thus will share the journey we have charted. A story, after all, is the character's journey.

Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.

And writing I think is a gift that you have, the same as acting, in a way.

Literature sucks you into another psyche. So the creation of empathy necessarily influences how you'll behave to other people.

Writing is an extreme privilege but it's also a gift. It's a gift to yourself and it's a gift of giving a story to someone.

You have to have empathy, knowledge and compassion for your characters if you're a writer.