Quotes About Vulnerability

I love being a comfortable person, but I'm very open. I'm not ashamed of myself and my beliefs.

I've always believed in trying to be as open as possible. I think it almost comes with the job - if you can bare your emotions, it makes for better acting.

what looks like strength is often weakness, an attempt to cover up fear; this is an act or a facade, however convincing it might appear to others or even to yourself.

he was ready, perhaps, to shed a little of the armor he wore around his heart, that upon returning to civilization, he intended to abandon the life of a solitary vagabond, stop running so hard from intimacy, and become a member of the human community.

if you have been assaulted by somebody you thought you could trust, how do you restore your sense of trust in the world or in people? And how do you trust yourself?

The revelation that he was merely human, and frightfully so, was beyond my power to forgive.

When McCandless came into his world, however, the boy undermined the old man's meticulously constructed defenses. Franz relished being with McCandless, but their burgeoning friendship also reminded him how lonely he'd been. The boy unmasked the gaping void in Franz's life even as he helped fill it. When McCandless departed as suddenly as he'd arrived, Franz found himself deeply and unexpectedly hurt.

Handwritten in neat block letters on a page torn from a novel by Nikolay Gogol, it read: S.O.S. I NEED YOUR HELP. I AM INJURED, NEAR DEATH, AND TOO WEAK TO HIKE OUT OF HERE I AM ALL ALONE, THIS IS NO JOKE. IN THE NAME OF GOD, PLEASE REMAIN TO SAVE ME. I AM OUT COLLECTING BERRIES CLOSE BY AND SHALL RETURN THIS EVENING. THANK YOU, CHRIS MCCANDLESS. AUGUST?

Females between sixteen and twenty-four years old face a higher risk of being sexually assaulted than any other age group. Most victims of campus rape are preyed upon when they are in their first or second year of college, usually by someone they know. And it's during the initial days and weeks of a student's freshman year, when she is in the midst of negotiating the fraught transition from girlhood to womanhood, that she is probably in the greatest danger.

Allison asked him, "Has this happened before?…" "No! Never!" Donaldson sobbed. "This is the first time anything has ever happened to me like this. Ever!…I

In fact, most women who are sexually assaulted do not resist. The fear is overwhelming. They often feel helpless. Sometimes they make a conscious choice not to resist because they are afraid if they resist, they will be hurt even worse.

Those who are frightened of losing what they have are the most vulnerable, and it is difficult to be clear-headed when you believe that you are teetering on a precipice.

As soon as the victim steps out of the pact by refusing to feel ashamed," he said, "the whole thing crumbles.

It is slightly chilling to realize there are rational, functional people up there employed to spot, nurture, and exploit those down here among us who are irrational and can barely cope. If you want to know how stupid you're perceived to be by the people up there, count the unsolicited junk mail you receive. If you get a lot, you're perceived to be alluringly stupid.

I'd been beguiled by the new technology—a toddler crawling toward a gun.

Please ejaculate, I silently urged the man, so I can go to sleep. (In this way I imagine I was like millions of women before me

It's about the terror, isn't it? The terror of what? The terror of being found out.

Whereas shame let out can lead to freedom, or at least to a funny story, which is a sort of freedom too.

shameworthiness lies in the space between who we are and how we present ourselves to the world

When you say Jonah seems broken, what do you mean? Justine said. I think he's broken and that people mistake it for shamelessness, I said. People really were very keen to imagine Jonah as shameless, as lacking in that quality, like he was something not quite human that had adopted human form. I suppose it's no surprise that we feel the need to dehumanize the people we hurt—before, during, or after the hurting occurs.

Vulnerability--not hunger, not anger, and certainly not spite--is the key to predator-prey relationships. The skill and viciousness of the hunter matters less than the size, speed, strength, health, and ferocity of the hunted. Vulnerability explains why large predators tend to kill the old, young, and sick members of prey populations. Predators eat the mild and weak because those are the animals they can catch and kill.

She was 3/4 perfection and 1/4 broken glass.

Your story is your soul. The longer you're with someone, the more you trust them, the more you're willing to tell. I believe when you find your real partner, you tell them everything until there's nothing left. Then you start from the beginning again, only this time it's their story as well as yours.

You're hiding from the world because it frightens you. I frighten you.