Quotes About Vulnerability

I'll never fall in love, because I could never trust that I wouldn't be abandoned.

When we really see other people as they are without taking it personally, we can never be hurt by what they say or do. Even if others lie to you, it is okay. They are lying to you because they are afraid. They are afraid you will discover that they are not perfect.

Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive-- the risk to be alive and express what we really are.

Make something too secure, and it becomes less secure.

Do I want to be loved in spite of?Do you? Does anyone? But aren't we all to some degree? Aren't there important parts of all of us which must be, so to say, gazed past? I turn a blind eye to that aspect of you and turn a blind eye to that aspect of me.

You are asking me to give up my sword? -I am. -Then I shall be swordless. Think what that means.

Love, which is a kind of permission to come closer than ordinary norms of good behavior might usually sanction. - Back rubs. - Which enables us to see each other without clothes on, for example, in lust and shame. - Examining perfections, imperfections. - Which allows us to say wounding things to each other which would not be kosher under the ordinary rules of civilized discourse.

I don't know if there's a healthier way for two people to stay in love than to stop using each other to resolve their unfulfilled longings and, instead, start holding each other closely as they experience them.

I am willing to sound dumb. I am willing to be wrong. I am willing to be passionate about something that isn't perceived as cool. I am willing to express a theory. I am willing to admit I'm afraid. I'm willing to contradict something I've said before. I'm willing to have a knee-jerk reaction, even a wrong one. I'm willing to apologize. I'm perfectly willing to be perfectly human.

Grace only sticks to our imperfections. Those who can't accept their imperfections can't accept grace either.

I'm perfectly willing to be perfectly human.

God is going to reveal me as a flawed human being as fast as he can and he's going to enjoy it because it will force me to grapple with real intimacy.

We don't think of our flaws as the glue that binds us to the people we love, but they are. Grace only sticks to our imperfections. Those who can't accept their imperfections can't accept grace either.

when the story of earth is told, all that will be remembered is the truth we exchanged. The vulnerable moments. The terrifying risk of love and the care we took to cultivate it. And all the rest, the distracting noises of insecurity and the flattery and the flashbulbs will flicker out like a turned-off television.

They never tell you when you get born a control freak it will cost you a healthy love life. But it's true. You can't control somebody and have intimacy with them at the same time. They may stay because they fear you, but true love casts out fear.

Perhaps that's another reason true intimacy is so frightening. It's the one thing we all want, and must give up control to get.

It's true: if we live behind a mask we can impress but we can't connect.

Naked people look funny when they are for-real naked, outside-a-magazine naked.

I don't trust people to accept who I am in process. I'm the kind of person who wants to present my most honest, authentic self to the world—so I hide backstage and rehearse honest and authentic lines until the curtain opens.

How can we be loved if we are always in hiding?

The risk of being known is also the decision to be criticized by some.

THE STUFF IT TAKES TO BE INTIMATE IS AUTHENTICITY, vulnerability, and a belief that other people are about as good and bad as we are.

There's truth in the idea we're never going to be perfect in love but we can get close. And the closer we get, the healthier we will be. Love is not a game any of us can win, it's just a story we can live and enjoy.

But true intimacy is just like that: it's the food you grow from well-tilled ground. And like most things good for us, it's an acquired taste.