Quotes About Vulnerability

I stopped watching for ridicule, the scorpion's tail hidden in his words.

Morimos con demasiada facilidad.

Fear sloshed over me, each wave colder than the last.

He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth, and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.

Y a pesar de lo herido que me sentía, bajo ningún concepto deseaba verle marchar ni contemplarle nervioso y temeroso, como el resto de nosotros.

All my defences are shredded, ripped away, exposing me. I'm sure he can see right down into my core, because I'm seeing into the very heart of him, and I'm petrified by what I find there.

To be brave is to love someone unconditionally, without expecting anything in return. To just give. That takes courage, because we don't want to fall on our faces or leave ourselves open to hurt.

I laugh at myself. I don't take myself completely seriously. I think that's another quality that people have to hold on to... you have to laugh, especially at yourself.

Deep in my heart I'm concealing things that I'm longing to say. Scared to confess what I'm feeling - frightened you'll slip away.

Writing is a bit like going on a diet; you should either tell everyone or no one.

Who can I trust? You have to invest in somebody and chances are you're probably going to invest in somebody who's going to deceive you. I've been conned a couple of times, but now I'm a little more savvy.

The ultimate indignity is to be given a bedpan by a stranger who calls you by your first name.

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes.

Speak your mind, even though your voice shakes.

Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind—even if your voice shakes.

And certainly there are many speakers whom I'd like to see do more trembling, more unknowing, more apologizing.

How people are often merciless on those they love the most

92. Eventually I confess to a friend some details about my weeping—its intensity, its frequency. She says (kindly) that she thinks we sometimes weep in front of a mirror not to inflame self-pity, but because we want to feel witnessed in our despair.

I will always aspire to contain my shit as best I can, but I am no longer interested in hiding my dependencies in an effort to appear superior to those who are more visibly undone or aching.

You know so much about people from the second they open their mouths. Right away you might know that you might want to keep them out. That's part of the horror of speaking, of writing. There is nowhere to hide. When you try to hide, the spectacle can grow grotesque.

I don't ever want to make the mistake of needing him as much as or more than he needs me. But there's no denying that sometimes, when we sleep together in the dark cavern of the bottom bunk, his big brother thrashing around on top, the white noise machine grinding out its fake rain, the green digital clock announcing every hour, Iggy's small body holds mine.

This is generous, for to be close to her pain has always felt like a privilege to me, even though pain could be defined as that which we typically aim to avoid.

While the two words often arrive sutured together, I think it worthwhile to breathe some space between them, so that one might see "brutal honesty" not as a more forceful version of honesty itself, but as one possible use of honesty. One that doesn't necessarily lay truth barer by dint of force, but that actually overlays something on top of it—something that can get in its way. That something is cruelty.

You've punctured my solitude, I told you.