David Hansen

“He asks people, for example, to tell him about the high points of their lives, the low points, and the turning points. Half the people he interviews end up crying at some point, recalling some hard event in their lives.”
― David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

“The psychologist Daniel Gilbert has a famous saying about this: “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they are finished.”
― David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

“In the biblical world, for example, “knowing” is also a whole-body experience. In the Bible, “knowing” can involve studying, having sex with, showing concern for, entering into a covenant with, being familiar with, understanding the reputation of. God is described as the perfect knower, the seer of all things, the one who sees not only with the objective eye of a scientist but with the grace-filled eye of perfect love.”
― David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

“The crucial question is not “What happened to this person?” or “What are the items on their résumé?” Instead, we should ask: “How does this person interpret what happened? How does this person see things? How do they construct their reality?” This is what we really want to know if we want to understand another person.”
― David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen