Quotes About Insecurity

The man who is not loved soars like a vulture over the mistresses of other men;

but that shadow self of hers wasn't so sure. The ugly, toxic thought was smaller than a drop of blood, yet it poisoned the entire stream.

Leni was afraid to stay and afraid to leave. It was strange—stupid, even—but she often felt like the only adult in her family, as if she were the ballast that kept the creaky Allbright boat on an even keel.

When you grow up as I have, a lost girl without any real past, you latch on to the people who seem to love you. At least that's what I did. It started early, my holding on too tightly and needing too much. I always craved love. The unconditional, even unearned kind. I needed someone to say it to me. Not to sound poor me, but my mother never said it.

He had abandoned her after all; it filled her with the kind of bone-deep disappointment she knew so well. Had she learned nothing in life? People left. She knew that. They especially left her.

I was taught by my father to be afraid of the world, and some of the lessons stuck. I read about Patty Hearst and the Zodiac Killer and the massacre at the Munich Olympics and Charles Manson, and I knew the world was a terrifying place. He said it all of the time, reminded me that mountains could blow up and kill people in their sleep. Governments were corrupt. A flu could come out of nowhere and kill millions. A nuclear bomb could fall at any second, obliterating everything.

When a man resorts to violence, he's scared," Jack said. "That's a good sign.

she'd always believed that she didn't belong. It was, she realized, an ugly bit of baggage that she'd carried here from her youth, and she'd been so damned busy hanging on to it that she'd failed to notice that the bags were empty.

Fear made you run and hide and shame made you stay quiet

Let him think she was as safe as one could be. A coward.

There was a pain that came with constant disapproval; a sense of having lost something unnamed, unknown

I know a thing or two about jealousy, how it can cut you to the bone and bring out the worst in you.

The more she got, the more she wanted, the more afraid she was of losing it, and the harder she worked.

It wouldn't hurt you to be afraid, you know.

I always craved love. The unconditional, even unearned kind. I needed someone to say it to me. Not to sound poor me, but my mother never said it.

She was so tired of begging people to love her.

I've been afraid since the moment they laid her in my arms. Every time she goes to school or to a friend's house or out on a date, I'm afraid. I'm afraid of what the world will do to my beautiful baby girl, afraid of what I will do to her. It never goes away, ever. You just live with it and love her and be there for her.

That was the thing about love—it was unreliable.

Slowly, Kate took off her robe and peeled out of her nightgown, trying not to notice how white and sticklike her legs were. Even worse was the battlefield that had been her breasts. She looked ruined, like a little boy, only there were the scars.

her mother's fear, and the shame that was its silent twin.

She was afraid that if she really held on to him, she'd never let go. She had to be cautious from now on, treat him as she would a skittish cat; be careful to never move too fast or need too much.

don't believe in love. Or marriage.

Being alone in a crowd is the worst, I think. Everyone belongs somewhere except you.

She wanted to say "Don't leave me," but she couldn't do it, not again. She was so tired of begging people to love her.