Quotes About Vulnerability

You're a painter. You're a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea and you always double knot your shoelaces.' I fight back. Then I dive back into my tent before I do something stupid like cry.

Not daring to flee since my general location has just been broadcast to any killer who cares. I mean, I know it's cold out here and not everybody has a sleeping bag.

Here, cover yourself with this and I'll wash your shorts." "Oh, I don't care if you see me," says Peeta.

What are lies but attempts to conceal some sort of weakness?

No one really needs me," he says, and there's no self-pity in his voice..."I do," I say. "I need you." He looks upset, takes a deep breath as if to begin a long argument, and that's no good, no good at all, because he'll start going on about Prim and my mother and everything and I'll just get confused. So before he can talk, I stop his lips with a kiss.

I flee what I can't fight. What can only do me harm.

I look down at our linked fingers as I loosen my grasp, but he regains his grip on me. "No, don't let go of me," he says.

But more words tumble out. 'You're a painter. You're a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. And you always double-knot your shoelaces.' Then I dive into my tent before I do something stupid like cry.

Entrails. No hissing. This is the closest we will ever come to love.

How about you, Mockingjay? You feel totally safe?" "Oh, yeah. Right up until I got shot," I say.

ll I can think about, every day, every waking minute since they drew Prim's name at the reaping, is how afraid I am.

Afraid of everything. If the people who were supposed to protect you played so fast and loose with your life . . . then how did you survive? Not by trusting them, that was for sure. And if you couldn't trust them, who could you trust? All bets were off.

I start to crack at four hundred to one.

Maybe everyone is just trying to protect me by lying to me. I don't care. I'm sick of people lying to me for my own good.

Maybe . . . because for the first time . . . there was a chance I could keep him," I say. "So now that you've got me, what are you going to do with me?" "Put you somewhere you can't get hurt." And when he kisses me, people in the room actually sigh.

Prim, let go," I say harshly, because this is upsetting me and I don't want to cry. When they televise the replay of the reapings tonight, everyone will make note of my tears, and I'll be marked as an easy target. A weakling. I will give no one that satisfaction.

I drink in his wholeness, the soudness of his body and mind. It runs through me like the morphling they give me in the hospital, dulling the pain of the last weeks.

Because I can't handle the nightmares. Not without you.

I'll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I'm afraid it could be taken away.

I reach for Prim in the twilight, clamp my hand on her leg and pull myself over to her. Her voice remains steady as she croons to Buttercup. "It's all right, baby, it's all right. We'll be OK down there." My mother wraps her arms around us. I allow myself to feel young for a moment and rest my head on her shoulder.

But there was only one kiss that made me feel something stir deep inside. Only one that made me want more. But my head wound started bleeding and he made me lie down.

I curl up, make myself smaller, try to disappear entirely. Wrapped in silence, I slide my bracelet that reads 'mentally disoriented' around and around my wrist.

At once, it's clear I cannot gush. We try me playing cocky, but I just don't have the arrogance. Apparently, I'm too "vulnerable" for ferocity. I'm not witty. Funny. Sexy. Or mysterious By the end of the session, I am no one at all.

I shift on to my side and find myself looking directly into Gale's eyes. For an instant the world recedes and there is just his flushed face, his pulse visible at his temple, his lips slightly parted as he tries to catch his breath.