Someone's parents have been singing entirely the wrong sort of songs.

Reading can almost be viewed as empathy training. Movies have better action scenes, sure. But books are uniquely suited to showing you the inside of another person's head. That is the root of empathy. That's the first step to understanding you're not alone in the world.

Joss [Whedon] is an excellent storyteller. It really doesn't matter what medium he's working in.

The Chancellor looked down at the empty table for a minute. Then he shrugged, looked up, and gave a surprisingly jaunty smile. "All in favor of admitting first-term Kvothe's reckless use of sympathy as proof of mastery of basic principles of sympathy vote by show of hands.

I swear I've never met a man who has your knack for lack of social grace. If you weren't naturally charming, someone would have stabbed you by now.

It's not prowess if you watch 5 hours of TV a day. It's just how you choose to spend your time.

Now the truth is, writing is a great way to deal with a lot of difficult emotional issues. It can be very therapeutic, but that's best done in your journal, or on your blog if you're an exhibitionist. Trying to put a bunch of *specific* stuff from your personal life into your story usually just isn't appropriate unless you're writing a memoir or a personal essay or something of the sort.