Quotes About Vulnerability

it's nice of Mrs. Goe to think that marching against the juvenile juror law is going to keep kids safe. But the fact is, we're NOT safe. Nobody is. That's the whole point. There's no such thing as being safe--here or anywhere. People get hurt every day. Some people get killed by weirdos like Bob White and some people just get teased to death at the lunch table for drinking orange soda or eating a tuna fish sandwich.

And you know, the crazy thing about love," I went on, "is that you can tell the other person anything in the world, and they'll love you. No matter what.

I saw in one flash that the most courageous thing a person can do is to love without being afraid.

I believe she's blown some dust off her heart.

It started with Carol and it was almost an accident. Woke up one night because I had to tell Fumio, sitting up in bed smoking, terrified, what will he do, will he kill me, will he ever speak to me again, so I made him wake up and I told him. He laughed into his pillow. Why are you laughing? 'Well, at least you won't get pregnant," ...giggled, and went back to sleep.

Tom watched his wife from the doorway, watched as she demonstrated how she had been killed. Though he had thought himself wrung out of tears, he wept, quietly, unashamedly, as Catherine showed off the simple movement that had left her little more than a living corpse.

The thought gave me reassurance for a split-second - until I saw the danger in it. The power to make me feel better also gave her the power to hurt me. With love came fear. It's like sun and shadow. How do you separate them?

you simply couldn't guard yourself against dreams. they attacked late at night when a person was at the most vulnerable.

before he left home, he broke his name. Broke it into thirty-eight tiny pieces… He swept up all the pieces of who he was and tucked them away in an inside pocket. And over the years, as he met people who ended up sharing the road with him, travelling with him for a while, he would quietly give each of them a piece of his name… with all the jigsaw pieces of his name scattered about, they wouldn't be able to get all of him when they came to take him away.

Sex, Emma thought. It curdled the mind and turned one into a drooling idiot. She had firsthand knowledge.

You never wanted to appear out of your element in New York. It made you vulnerable.

You can't turn love on and off like a light switch, no matter how hard you try. All you can do is wall it off, one brick at a time, until you've created an impenetrable fortress around your emotions. And once that fortress is built, you camouflage it so well that even you can't see it anymore.

I was right not to be afraid of any thief but myself, who will end by leaving me nothing.

Conroy himself suffered cruelties and injustices throughout his life, from the time he was a child beaten by a violent and abusive father. The man who emerged from the crucible of chronic trauma was a warrior of words, determined to bear witness to the wrongs inflicted on the innocent and vulnerable by the corrupt and powerful.

It is, I suppose, the common grief of children at having to protect their parents from reality. It is bitter for the young to see what awful innocence adults grow into, that terrible vulnerability that must be sheltered from the rodent mire of childhood.

My worst is all out in the open. It makes it necessary for people to tell you about themselves.

In the end I would always pull up with a sense of glory, that loving is the strong side. It's feeble to be an object. What's the point of being loved in return, I'd ask myself.

Marriage is actually really terrifying. It doesn't work for many people.

Of course, it was a rather hard lot, to be cherished. The beloved can so easily disappoint when they inevitably prove to be human.

I'm a Cancerian, the typical crab with the tough outer shell and the soft bit in the middle. I don't think I'll ever come to terms with people being unnecessarily nasty, but I can take it if someone doesn't like my music - I'm not everyone's cup of tea.

The famous are revered; for to understand repertoire of losing ones inhibitions

There. You see? You're already a pawn in her hands." She paused. "But you're not the only one. I am too. I can't escape after all. The more I want to, the more impossible it is. It's awful; it's as if my own will were paralyzed

And that's when I realized that there's really two ways people cry. You cry when you're sorry for yourself, and then you cry when you are really sad. The tears you cry for yourself? Those are kid tears. You're crying because you want somebody to help you or pick you up. Your mom, your dad, the old lady next door... anyone.

Letting your soul, or whatever fancy name you like to give it, out of its cage and into the daylight is perhaps the hardest thing anyone can do.