Quotes About Vulnerability

I love this idea, Bruno says. Of being broken but finding pleasure in it.

I stop to change my film. Without the camera to shield my eyes, I start to feel weak. Queasy. The room tilts. I see the heart lying there, inert and cold. I see the women shoving it back inside the chest cavity... I picture the cavity behind my eyes, and instead of a brain I imagine an enormous roll of film, winding maniacally inside a bloodless metallic skull. A simple recording device, nothing more.

Interpretar un alma torturada sobre el escenario era más fácil para Ian sin el ojo vigilante de la mujer que lavaba su ropa interior.

You're afraid to let a man close for fear he'll uncover the wanton [bitch] side of you that you're so ashamed of.

What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open. —Muriel Rukeyser

We were taught not to offer or invite aid, because, like it or not, helping is a messy, confused proposition; sometimes you get it right and sometimes you get it wrong, and sometimes you have no choice but to trust that the man holding your tire iron, cussing at your old lug nuts, is a deeply kind human after all.

I recognized that I was small and soft; I wanted to believe in people - that they were kind and good, and given the chance, everything would turn out okay - but bad things do happen, and sometimes the best you can do is swim through them, focus, and years later say, Ya, I know that feeling, when some smart ass asks whether you've ever been so scared you wanted to pee your pants.

I wanted to say a lot but wasn't sure where to start; people don't want to hear about how your heart has melted into the dirt under your house.

To love is to risk the pain of loss. But it's a risk that's worth taking.

God, secrets could simply do you in.

But the truth of the matter is that we've all got cracks in our spirits, and we have to remember they're only there because we need them. ... Otherwise, how could God's grace filter in deep enough to give us the joy and peace we're all searching for in this world? It couldn't, plan and simple.

Nous aimons, sans nous en douter, tout ce qui nous livre à nos penchants, nous séduit et excuse notre faiblesse.

He was completely and openly a mess. Meanwhile the rest of us go on trying to fool each other.

In my writing, I want to be laid bare as a human being.

Write naked. That means to write what you would never say. Write in blood. As if ink is so precious you can't waste it. Write in exile, as if you are never going to get home again, and you have to call back every detail.

Write naked. Write in exile. Write in blood.

Talk into here. Talk into my bullet hole. Tell me I'm fine.

Three Rules To Write By Write naked. That means to write what you would never say. Write in blood. As if ink is so precious you can't waste it. Write in exile as if you are never going to get home again, and you have to call back every detail. Denis Johnson

They needed to share one secret after another with a beautiful woman, to peel away layer after layer, mask after mask, and still find themselves worshiped.

She was resting at a table between numbers in the Greek nightclub where she was dancing. A little of the stage light touched her. She was very frail. She seemed to be thinking about something far away, waiting patiently for somebody to destroy her.

I don't remember what I said to them. I remember loneliness crushing first my lungs. Then my heart. Then my balls.

The woman hurt me. She looked so soft and perfect, like a mannequin made of flesh, flesh all the way through.

The feeling that he was afraid of me was invigorating.

No more pretending for him! He was completely and openly a mess. Meanwhile the rest of us go on trying to fool each other.