Quotes About Vulnerability

woman must have a heart made of something tougher, or she dies when a first blow comes.

I can't imagine what it would be like to have sex with a man. To be so intimate with another person. Not to hide anything. I don't know if I could do that. It would have to be a boy anyway, not a grown man, someone as scared as me.

You would not have gone. I understand that. You would not have gone up to his room. You would not have asked him for help. You would not have been wandering lost at midnight at age eleven. You would have been safe and dry and asleep, at home with your mother and father who cared about you and had rules, curfews, expectations. Everything for you would have been different. But if you were me, you would have done what I did. You would have gone, hopeful and stupid, to get the money for the taxi.

People who are harder to love pose a challenge, and the challenge makes them easier to love. You're driven to love them. People who want their love easy don't really want love.

And there you were," he said. "In your cotton-underweared splendor.

If you stayed there, sooner or later you were going to be visited at night by Russ, who was old, and muscular, and mean. The girls complained about being raped by him as if it were a form of strictness, or rent. They were willing to endure it because they didn't have other options. The rest of us did nothing about it because Russ bought us liquor and what were we to do, call the police? One of them was known for taking girls out to Point Lobos instead of to the police station.

before she was lost to the Tenderloin, north of Fascination, up in the boisterous and dirty hotels that formed the pearls on the chain of her bare life, barer even than mine.

I'm not just a Strong Black Woman; I'm a Real Human Being with strengths and vulnerabilities, hopes and fears, standards and contradictions.

No, it's not okay to cry, because when dignity is all you have left you can't afford to lose it.

I love auditioning. Since 'The Notebook' and 'Wedding Crashers ' I don't have to audition anymore, and I miss it. You get to show your interpretation of the character. I get nervous when I don't audition. What if they hate what I want to do?

Perhaps we are no longer a kind people. More and more, we seem to have become numb to the suffering of others and ashamed of our own suffering. Yet suffering is one of the universal conditions of being alive. We all suffer. We have become terribly vulnerable, not because we suffer but because we have separated ourselves from each other.

It is actually difficult to edit life. Especially in regard to feelings. Not being open to anger or sadness usually means being unable to be open to love and joy. The emotions seem to operate with an all-or-nothing switch.

Before every session, I take a moment to remember my humanity. There is no experience that this man has that I cannot share with him, no fear that I cannot understand, no suffering that I cannot care about, because I too am human. No matter how deep his wound, he does not need to be ashamed in front of me. I too am vulnerable. And because of this, I am enough.

LOST AND FOUND IMMY WAS A frail little girl, the only child of older parents. At three, she was only as big as the average eighteen-month-old toddler. She was unable to walk more than a few blocks without tiring and did not have the strength to play games you could not play sitting down. A desperately wanted and long-awaited baby, she had been born with a hole in her heart and a badly formed heart valve. Only the most careful medical management had helped her

Was it possible to live so defensively that you never got to live at all?

We've all got our issues, our baggage experiences, our pet peeves, our weaknesses, our harebrained ideas, our nutty hang-ups and quirks, and areas of our character that God is still working on. That's just the way it is on this side of eternity. So we have to be willing to freely give and receive grace and to give and receive help. Because when we don't, people wind up isolated, hurting, and wondering if it's worth the risk to connect with others.

Deeply vulnerable and hurting within as you act tough outside. You do need people; you need them so much so that it scares you to death. You drive them away so they don't get too close; yet you regret it every time you do.

What did I do, Win? You just left. You were supposed to come to my house. If it was too much, too soon, you should have told me. I'd never pressure you to do anything you didn't want to do. That's it, right? That has to be it.

I tell girls all the time that the men that have fallen in love with me, have all fallen during a man repeller stage... funny how life works out like that.

He could not talk himself out of pain any longer. He had no one to be strong for. So finally, he cried. He cried with deep sobs, head bent to the ground, palms pressed to his eyes. He cried so hard that sorrow rushed out of his face. He cried until he felt like the sea.

Love makes us stupid, sometimes.

If I love you more than you love me, I'm as good as dead. Yet I can't make myself take it back. I can't just walk away from you, because every time you pass by me without smiling, without touching my hand, or at least making eye contact, it feels like I'm dying inside.

I can't stand men crying. It's wrong, isn't it? Their faces aren't made for it, they kind of crumple; it's painful to watch.

Stephen, why are you shivering?' 'I don't know, my darling.' 'Mary, why are you crying?' 'I don't know, Stephen.' p424