Ros B

“Simply looking each other in the eye can make a big difference. Failure to make eye contact, or perhaps, worse still, failing to look with interest into someone’s eyes, diminishes our sense of connectedness. When there is no eye contact or when there is no interest shown in the eyes of the person who gazes at us, we feel like we have been ‘looked through’. The Germans have a phrase for this—wie Luft behandeln—which translates as ‘looked at as though air’. When we are looked at in this sort of way, it can be quite hurtful.”
― Jonathan Andrews, The Reconnected Heart: How relationships can help us heal

“There you have it, Montag. It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick (p. 58).”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“I had come to see language as an almost supernatural force, existing between people, bringing our brains, shielded in centimeter-thick skulls, into communion. A word meant something only between people, and life’s meaning, its virtue, had something to do with the depth of the relationships we form.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“Keen interest from a caring person is important, but their understanding depends on our willingness to disclose information about ourselves. Humans need understanding but we can’t hope to be understood without being prepared to reveal the truth about ourselves. Lack of sharing is the death knell of intimacy.”
― Jonathan Andrews, The Reconnected Heart: How relationships can help us heal