Quotes About Vulnerability

As if they could understand what she had been through. As if they knew what it was like to be strong and invincible one day and completely powerless the next.

That's what love is, Sara, when there are so many things about you that you only want one person in the world to know.

Personality shots," her roommates used to call the first drinks of the night. Liquid courage. Whatever you called it, the point was to turn off the voice in your head that reminded you of everything wrong in your life.

She hated the thought of needing people almost as much as she hated having to reach out to them.

the easiest way for a man to get into your heart was if you imagined what he was like as a child.

She would never feel another man's touch without wondering whether or not she could really trust him.

He was safe because she would never really give all of herself to him.

Kate's knees felt shaky as she walked across the parking garage under the Barbizon Hotel. Every atom in her body was vibrating at a different frequency. Her lips felt swollen from Philip's kisses. Her breasts were tender from his mouth. If she closed her eyes, she could summon up the sensations of his tongue roaming up and down her body.

She knew from before: the moment se let her guard down, the world would spiral into a distant but familiar abyss.

Eighty percent of custodial suicides are achieved by hanging. Prison inmates are seven times more likely to kill themselves than the general population.

he knew that sexual predators were like cockroaches. For every one you saw, there were twenty more hiding behind the walls.

Will knew from Angie that the girls seldom got to keep any cash. The pimps took care of their living quarters, their food, their clothes. All the girls had to do was risk their lives and health every night by tricking whatever john pulled up with the right amount of cash. It was modern slavery, which was ironic, considering most if not all of the pimps were black.

Will's scars were both emotional and physical. He didn't trust people - at least not enough. Getting him to talk about his feelings was like pulling teeth. Actually, getting him to talk about anything of true importance was like pulling the Titanic through quicksand. With a shoestring.

Claire lunged toward her desk. She opened the drawer. Lydia's file was still hidden inside. Claire's relief was so pronounced that she wanted to cry. She touched her fingers to her cheek. She was crying. Her tear ducts were on constant standby for anything that would send them over. Instead of giving in to it, Claire shut the drawer. She wiped her eyes. She stood up. She straightened her shirt as she made her way to the kitchen.

Then I ask myself what would happen if that grimy metal mesh were taken away. What would a man like Ben Carver do to me if there were no guards posted, no barrier between us? Would he explicate Spenser's Faerie Queene or would he cut me open and sample a sliver of my pancreas?

A PARTICULARLY BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IS A SOURCE OF TERROR. —Carl Jung

And less dangerous, because if a man rejects a woman, she goes home and cries for a few days. If a woman rejects a man, he can rape and kill her.

Claire didn't understand the appeal of being drugged. She had thought the purpose was to make you numb, but if anything, she was feeling everything much too intensely. She couldn't shut down her brain. She felt shaky. Her tongue was too thick for her mouth. Maybe she was doing it wrong.

Sara was beginning to understand just how hard it was to be strong for everyone else around you when all you really wanted to do was curl up into a ball and be comforted yourself.

There's a difference between needing to be saved and asking somebody who cares about you for help.

There was nothing more vicious than a teenage girl. Maybe it was because boys were more capable of settling an argument with their fists, but girls at this age were much more conniving and torturous than anyone wanted to believe.

If you love without evoking love in return - if through the vital expression of yourself as a loving person you fail to become a loved person, then your love is impotent, it is a misfortune.

I like being in control, was all Keely said, looking at him. She could have said, I hate for anyone to know I don't know everything, that I sometimes feel so out of my depth that three lifesavers wouldn't keep me from drowning, but she didn't What's so wrong with that?

I threw my arms around him. "I yearn only for you." Quinton gave a self-conscious shrug and an embarrassed laugh. "I feel the same way about you and I'm sorry I'm  .  .  . being an ass. Also, I suspect you just wanted to use 'yearn' in a sentence.