Quotes About Vulnerability

Whatever fears, whatever sense of vulnerability may underlie such behavior, it also comes out of entitlement, the entitlement to inflict suffering and even death on other people. It breeds misery in the perpetrator and the victims. (The Longest War)

it's okay to realize that we do need help, that calling out for help is a very generous act because it allows others to help us and it allows us to be helped. Sometimes we're calling out for help.

The things that make our lives are so tenuous, so unlikely, that we barely come into being, barely meet the people we're meant to love, barely find our way in the woods, barely survive catastrophe every day.

it's okay to realize that we do need help, that calling out for help is a very generous act because it allows others to help us and it allows us to be helped.

Sidda was tired of being vigilant, alert, sharp. She longed for porch friendship, for the sticky, hot sensation of familiar female legs thrown over hers in companionship. She pined for the girlness of it all, the unplanned, improvisational laziness. She wanted to soak the words time management out of her lexicon. She wanted to hand over, to yield, to let herself float down into the uncharted beautiful fertile musky swamp of life, where creativity and eroticism and deep intelligence dwell.

The alligators can get you at any age, Buddy. But the worst thing you can do is freeze.

I shake so hard that freckles jump off my face.

Mama parted with these Divine Secrets because I asked her to, Sidda thought. the reason I feel like crying, Sidda realized, is not just because this scrapbook is vulnerable, but because Mama, whether she knows it or not, has made herself so vulnerable to me.

thinking: I don't want my little girl to come out blind or gouged up. I'm not cheap, I'm scared. It's the story of my life: not stingy, just a goddamn coward.

and I will always have to be careful with each other. She

Sidda and I will always have to be careful with each other.

Mama parted with these Divine Secrets because I asked her to, Sidda thought. The reason I feel like crying, Sidda realized, is not just because this scrapbook is vulnerable, but because Mama, whether she knows it or not, has made herself so vulnerable to

Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this.

Now King Alexander is driving down the familiar streets, curiously unguarded, in a curiously antique car. It can be seen from his attempt to make his stiff hand supple, from a careless flash of his careful black eyes, it can be seen that he is taking the cheers of the crowd with a childish seriousness. It is touching, like a girl putting full faith in the compliments that are paid to her at a ball.

Human relations are essentially imperfect.

That is the great handicap of sexual love, that lovers can share everything except what explains the past, of which their enjoyment is a part.

I would not sing you to sleep. I would press my lips to your ear and hope the terror in my heart stirs you.

Lullaby I would not sing you to sleep. I would press my lips to your ear and hope the terror in my heart stirs you.

I am the definition of a powerful woman. I love with my whole body, heart, and soul. I say whatever the fuck is on my mind. I make huge mistakes proudly. I rage with as much passion as I grieve. I live my poetry, my art.

I am a fool who with his longing for love and tenderness runs up cold mountains.

The salesgirl, the landlord, the guests, the bystanders, sixteen varieties of social circumstance in a day. Everyone has the power to call your whole life into question here. Too many people have access to your state of mind. Some people are indifferent to dislike, even relish it. Hardly anyone I know.

Fear never keeps anyone safe

Fear wants our answers to be neat and pretty; freedom doesn't care if the truth is messy.

You can only have connection or perfection. You can't have both!