Quotes About Vulnerability

She remembered the intensity of her desire to undress him, to be naked with him, the way she felt like she could say whatever she wanted and be fully understood and do whatever she wanted and be totally accepted. She remembered how easy it had all been, how open and bright, like being in a whitewashed room with all the windows wide open.

And she knows him well enough to know that he would be humiliated if he found out about her affair with Scarlett and that that humiliation would spill over into anger and that he is strong and he is already only one flash away from hurting her, constantly.

Another drawn-out silence follows and Tallulah waits. Waits to be hit, waits to be screamed at, waits for the anger that exists so close to the tight seams of Zach's psyche finally to burst through.

That's the whole bloody trouble with the world. Too weak to love properly. Too weak to be wrong.

You. You and your fucking "tie me up" bullshit. You and your other guys. Guys who've done that to you. Every time I shut my eyes, there they are. Lined up. And I can't, I cannot get them out of my head, Rachel. You put them there. Bunch of fucking creeps.

He'd cried and buried his wet face in her shoulder and told her that he was not worthy, that she could leave him, that he wouldn't blame her, that this was not what she'd signed up for, less than she deserved. She had stroked his hair and soothed him and told him that she was not with him for his money, that she was with him because she loved him. She loved him. She loved him.

It's the money thing,' he said after a short, murky moment of post-coital silence. 'It's … I'm not used to this. I'm not used to being poor. I'm not used to having to take money from the woman I love. I'm just … I'm emasculated, Rachel. I'm fucking emasculated.

the one that didn't involve tiptoeing around a middle-aged man's fragile masculinity, bringing his flaccid penis back to life like a paramedic every night.

I'm not the most together person in the world and it doesn't take much to make all the wheels fall off.

She thought of how she'd contorted herself and her habits and her behaviour for twenty years to be a person who would not be raped, and now she had been raped in the place where she was meant to be safe, by the person who was meant to protect her. She felt the artifice of the last twenty years of her life, the pointlessness and futility of it. She might as well have taken the shortcut, worn the tarty top, flirted with the shady guy. She might as well have lived her life free.

But, Josie, think about it. Erin has been abused under your roof for years. You've done nothing to protect her. She waits until you're out of the house before she uses the bathroom. What on earth makes you think she's going to get in touch with you?

She says this with a strange certainty, as if the world were not full of dangerous people who prey on the vulnerable, as if nothing bad could possibly have happened to her daughter between three o'clock on Saturday morning and now.

She thinks, You didn't see the look he gave me just now on the stairs. You don't know how he looks at me when you're not in the room; the way his voice sets hard like stone, his eyes bore through me like lasers. You really don't know.

She has no energy for practicalities. She just wants to keep herself tight inside the bubble … not let life crawl in through the gaps.

A WEAK MAN CAN'T LOVE A STRONG WOMAN. HE WON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH HER.

Too weak to love properly. Too weak to be wrong.

It was finally becoming clear to her that love wasn't about finding someone perfect to marry. Love was about seeing through to the truth of a person, and accepting all their shades of light and dark. Love was an ability.

I didn't want to give you the one last part of myself that I couldn't take back. And then you were gone... And I realized it was already yours. It had been since the beginning. Except that I hadn't told you. It drove me mad, the thought that you would never know.

I realized I wasn't going to find a man until I was willing to expose myself to possible harm, to assume the risks of rejection and betrayal and heartbreak that came along with caring about someone. Someday, I promised myself, I would be ready for that kind of risk.

She felt him tremble with the force of his need. He spoke just beneath her ear, his voice thick with tormented pleasure. "You have to leave, Sara ... because I want to hold you like this until your skin melts into mine. I want you in my bed, the smell of you on my sheets, your hair spread across my pillow. I want to take your innocence. God! I want to ruin you for anyone else.

It might do wonders for your marriage," Amelia continued. "It's lovely to talk to your husband after you've been to bed together. They just lie there feeling grateful and say yes to everything." - Amelia to Poppy

Because letting someone in close meant they could hurt you. I knew all about that kind of fear. I lived with it.

I think in a moment of weakness, you might surprise yourself.

Annabelle gave him a chiding smile. "If you're implying that I'm spoiled, I assure you that I am not." "You should be." His warm gaze slid over her pink-tinted face and slender upper body, then sought hers again. There was a note in his voice that gently robbed her of breath. "You could do with a bit of spoiling.