Quotes About Vulnerability

so you protected yourself and loved small

A man ain't a goddamn axe, choppin', hackin', bustin' every goddamn minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he can't chop down, because they inside.

She seemed to fold into herself, like a pleated wing. Her pain antagonized me. I wanted to open her up, crisp her edges, ram a stick down that hunched and curving spine, force her to stand erect and spit the misery out on the streets. But she held it in where it could lap up into her eyes.

Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit; everything, just a little bit, so when they brok its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one.

She knew Paul D was adding something to her life—something she wanted to count on but was scared to... His waiting eyes and awful human power. The mind of him that knew her own. Her story was bearable because it was his as well—to tell, to refine and tell again. The things neither knew about the other—the things neither had word-shapes for—well, it would come in time.

I want to feel what I feel. Even if it's not happiness

Why not? I can be miserable if I want to. You don't need to try and make it go away. It shouldn't go away. Its just as sad as it ought to be and I'm not going to hide from what's true just because it hurts.

They shoot the white girl first.

Not even trying, he had become the kind of man who could walk into a house and make the women cry. Because with him, in his presence, they could. There was something blessed in his manner. Women saw him and wanted to weep—to tell him that their chest hurt and their knees did too. Strong women and wise saw him and told him things they only told each other:

Naturally all of them had a sad story: too much notice, not enough, or the worst kind. Some tale about dragon daddies and false-hearted men, or mean mamas and friends who did them wrong. Each story has a monster in it who made them tough instead of brave, so they open their legs rather than their hearts where that folded child is tucked.

Did you do it yet? He was like a teen-age girl wondering about the virginity of her friend, the friend who has a look, a manner newly minted––different, separate, focused somehow. Did you do it yet? Do you know something both exotic and ordinary that I have not felt? Do you now know what it's like to risk your one and only self? How did it feel? Were you afraid? Did it change you? And if I do it, will it change me too?

The Thing to fear was the Thing that made her beautiful, and not us.

You can't protect her every minute.

Nobody counted on Garner dying. Nobody thought he could. How 'bout that? Everything rested on Garner being alive. Without his life each of theirs fell to pieces. Now ain't that slavery or what is it?

Although she has claim, she is not claimed. In the place where long grass opens, the girl who waited to be loved and cry shame erupts into her separate parts, to make it easy for the chewing laughter to swallow her all away.

And if he bathes her in sections, will the parts hold?

If you can't count they can cheat you. If you can't read they can beat you.

She was broken. Not broken up but broken down, down into her separate parts.

Didn't everything on God's earth have or acquire defense?

For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit; everything, just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one.

I can be miserable if I want to. You don't need to try and make it go away. It shouldn't go away. It's just as sad as it ought to be and I'm not going to hide from what's true just because it hurts.

Well, that's the way it was. Nobody counted on Garner dying. Nobody though he could. How 'bout that? Everything rested on Garner being alive. Without his life each of theirs fell to pieces. Now ain't that slavery or what is it?

Were we women so frail in the wake of men who swore they cherished us? Was a lover's betrayal more lethal than betrayal of oneself?

I insist on being shocked. I am never going to become immune. I think that's a kind of failure to see so much of it that you die inside. I want to be surprised and shocked every time.