Social Connection Quotes

“Belonging means being part of a place and part of a community, to feel at home with the earth and with one another.”
― Fons Burger, The Only Possible Solution: How to Shape the Future for Our Next Generations

“Being openhearted is a prerequisite for being a full, kind, and wise human being. But it is not enough. People need social skills. We talk about the importance of “relationships,” “community,” “friendship,” “social connection,” but these words are too abstract. The real act of, say, building a friendship or creating a community involves performing a series of small, concrete social actions well: disagreeing without poisoning the relationship; revealing vulnerability at the appropriate pace; being a good listener; knowing how to end a conversation gracefully; knowing how to ask for and offer forgiveness; knowing how to let someone down without breaking their heart; knowing how to sit with someone who is suffering; knowing how to host a gathering where everyone feels embraced; knowing how to see things from another’s point of view.”
― David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

“Friendship can be hard.
And for many of us, we feel like we have had a harder time than typical people. We feel like everyone else has a playbook for friendship, that they seem to know what to do when we feel unsure what to do, to say, or even sometimes to feel.
If only it was that straightforward. In fact, if there was a yellow brick road that led to abundant friends, we would have taken
that road accompanied by Toto and our own pair of ruby slippers.”
― Caroline Maguire, Friendship Skills for Neurodivergent Adults: A Guide for the Anxious, Uniquely Wired, and Easily Distracted