Top 70 Sympathetic Quotes

When I was a kid growing up, I liked the sympathetic characters played by Alan Arkin, Jack Lemmon, and James Stewart. They were my heroes. No matter what happened to them, they survived with their dignity intact.

I always loved Flannery O’Conner, and how she’s not trying to create sympathetic characters.

I, for one – despite being a pretty solid climate hawk, I am extremely sympathetic to West Virginia and its coal-country needs. I lived there for a year. I’ve seen it. And the same for Wyoming, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky. They all have parts of their state where that really matters.

It was physically difficult, adjusting to wheelchair life, but I remember a great relief and happiness that I was finally getting somewhere, finding musicians to work with that were sympathetic.

Anne Boleyn isn’t a sympathetic character, but I like that she isn’t a people pleaser. She’s ambitious and manipulative, but she’s honest. I’m biased, but I don’t think a woman who has said ‘no’ to the King of England for six years would jump into bed with four of his best friends. She was a slick political mind.

Developing our sympathetic compassion is not only possible but the only reason for us to be here on earth.

There’s this thing in Hollywood about the sympathetic character and likability. I’ve never understood that because the people I love most in my life are not likable all the time. My wife is not always likable. I’m certainly not always likable. My dad is not always likable. We’re human beings.

There will be, I think, an attempt to grasp again the surprise and accidents of nature and a more intimate and sympathetic study of its moods, together with a renewed wonder and humility on the part of such as are still capable of these basic reactions.

The zombie was just an intriguing character; it is a sympathetic character.

It’s not very interesting to establish sympathy for people who, on the surface, are instantly sympathetic. I guess I’m always attracted to people who, if their lives were headlines in a newspaper, you might not be very sympathetic about them.

Sympathetic characters usually have a voice. They usually don’t have any trouble being heard.

No one who knows my personal situation would think I am not sympathetic to the needs of the active forces.

For anyone to open their heart, they need the right atmosphere, and something to prompt them. For my mother it was her trip abroad: she was in a very relaxed, understanding environment. I was very sympathetic towards her.

My parents, once I made it clear to them that I wanted to do science, they were totally sympathetic.

I’m not very sympathetic to the tendency to bring art to the people.

Harvard was also a little bit of a villain in my first book, ‘The Dante Club.’ I guess there might be a way to make Harvard more of a sympathetic presence, but it’s such a powerful institution that it more naturally lends itself toward not necessarily a negative but an obstructionist element in a story.

I’m not a sympathetic guy when I see people throwing their lives away and using their life’s obstacles as excuses to fail. I just don’t buy into that.

The new right-wing movement is a wide group of people committed to free speech, anti-war, trade. It’s sympathetic to whistleblowers.

The idea that people feel that they have to be sympathetic to me? It’s a funny concept.

Is there anything more dangerous than sympathetic understanding?

Perhaps he was a bit different from other people, but what really sympathetic person is not a little mad?

There’s a horrible fallacy that exists in the popular discussion of fiction these days: the idea that a successful central character need be ‘likeable’ or ‘sympathetic’. It is surely more important that they be human, no? More crucial that they breathe?

There’s enough of a willingness in the West to do sympathetic movies about Arab roles.

Baby girls, as young as 12 months old, respond more empathically to the distress of other people, showing greater concern through more sad looks, sympathetic vocalisations and comforting. This echoes what you find in adulthood: more women report frequently sharing the emotional distress of their friends.

I really do try not to emote. I don’t like seeing it on documentaries – it seems a bit unprofessional. I also need to be human being and be a kind of sympathetic presence for the contributors I’m with, so there’ a line you have to walk.

Ironically, heavier comedians, actors, and the characters they play are actually more sympathetic, and easier for audiences to identify with, than the svelte.

I had a sympathetic role in ‘thirtysomething,’ and in two weeks I’m going to do the role again. But in the movies, I just love the heavies. It’s much more fun. Villains are a ball. People have been laughing at me for 50 years, so I love to sit in the back of the theater and listen to them hate me.

I’ve been on the other side of the table many times, trying to get people to be sympathetic to projects, and I’ve been the victim of that kind of intense kindness masking extreme stupidity.

Captain William Thomas Turner, hero; villain, Schwieger. As I started doing research into him and into the submarine and so forth, I found that I was growing increasingly sympathetic to him. He’s a young guy, 30, handsome, well-liked by his crew, humane.

Most of the time, we make discoveries about how difficult people are at the moment when the difficulties have actually hurt us; therefore, we are not likely to be forgiving or sympathetic.

Where there had been only jeers or taunts at first, crowds come to listen with serious and sympathetic men.

All the textbooks talk about avoidance as a classic hallmark of anxiety disorder. So you need a therapist who is sympathetic and understanding but will also push you to do precisely the things that scare you.

I think that Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi obviously are incredibly sympathetic to the DACA people. And so am I, of course.

In all the great periods of the drama perfect freedom of choice and subject, perfect freedom of individual treatment, and an audience eager to give itself to sympathetic listening, even if instruction be involved, have brought the great results.

Godard never sought to be sympathetic.

Sympathetic cracks. A term frequently used by architects and surveyors in terms of ageing houses. I know what they mean.

My own experience being bullied – it made me a more compassionate person. It made me more sympathetic to the adolescent experience.

There’s a bizarre insistence on how a story should be. ‘The protagonist must be sympathetic!’ they say. Whatever that means. I never engage in that discussion. I never use that word, ‘sympathetic.’ I just know ‘interesting.’

My mum, who died in 2011, was the most loving mother you could ask for. She was very compassionate, always a good listener, and her love was a constant throughout my life. She was very sympathetic, kind and understanding and I think these values can be underrated.

I was sympathetic to virtually all groups that wanted to get away from the old system.

Bill Clinton was one of the greatest presidents that we’ve seen. He was involved in the peace process in the very beginning, and he not only showed himself to be knowledgeable about Irish history and Irish-British relationships, but also he was very sympathetic to the idea of resolving conflict.

There will be people who are sensitive about seeing the American point of view presented as less than sympathetic.

I feel people think I’m almost like a robot – like an android… I just don’t really get portrayed as someone who has feelings or who is sympathetic… like a self-absorbed ice queen.

I think that female roles, they can be victims, they can be sympathetic, they can be in pain, they can be in suffering – but they can’t be ugly. I think there’s so much fear surrounding that, that it makes a film unlikeable, that it won’t sell.

One must never assume that a character is sympathetic because of either the actor playing them or the fact that they’re a lead. I think that’s a recipe for failure, actually, because if they become unsympathetic, you lose your audience.

The pat on the back, the arm around the shoulder, the praise for what was done right and the sympathetic nod for what wasn’t are as much a part of golf as life itself.

Maybe it’s my Catholic upbringing – I grew up thinking that Armageddon was just around the corner – now I know it is, with global warming and all. I can keep it at bay by doing the work. It’s a sort of reverse sympathetic magic. I’m always doing it so it doesn’t happen to me.

I was brought up to be sympathetic toward others.

One who is kind is sympathetic and gentle with others. He is considerate of others’ feelings and courteous in his behavior. He has a helpful nature. Kindness pardons others’ weaknesses and faults. Kindness is extended to all – to the aged and the young, to animals, to those low of station as well as the high.

I thought that would be kind of cool, to make a bad guy look sympathetic.

My characters are always utterly sympathetic to me, if that makes any sense.