Quotes About Vulnerability

What is given may be taken away, at any time. Cruelty and devastation wait for you around corners, inside coffers, behind doors: they can leap out at you at any moment, like a thief or brigand. The trick is never to let down your guard.

What is given may be taken away, at any time. Cruelty and devastation wait for you around corners, inside coffers, behind doors: they can leap out at you at any moment, like a thief or brigand. The trick is never to let down your guard. Never think you are safe. Never take for granted that your children's hearts beat, that they sup milk, that they draw breath, that they walk and speak and smile

She discovers that it is possible to cry all day and all night. That there are many different ways to cry: the sudden outpouring of tears, the deep, racking sobs, the soundless and endless leaking of water from the eyes.

It may be tonight, in the deepest dark, because that is the most dangerous time for the sick.

When I looked back at him I saw that he was looking at her, I saw the way it was, that he might dissolve like sugar in water, and when I saw this I—

and when I first saw him I thought I might dissolve, like sugar in water.

We will hit the ocean or the ground at speed and we will explode like cans of soda.

And she looked up at me and it was as if she was waking from sleep. She stretched. She actually stretched and she said, hello, Kit. And then she must have seen that I was on the verge of tears because her face fell and she said, what is it? And I said, you. You are ruining my chances. And, you know, she said, chances of what? And I realised that if I were to successfully—

Holding my child, I realised my vulnerability to death: I was frightened of it, for the first time. I knew all too well how fine a membrane separates us from that place, and how easily it can be perforated. —

Will you listen to yourself, she said to him, and added, eejit, just loud enough for him to hear. When I looked back at him I saw that he was looking at her, I saw the way it was, that he might dissolve like sugar in water, and when I saw this I—

When she first came to New York she knew no one. She arrived in a rush, like someone who trips when they enter a room.

You are so beautiful," he breathed. Standing over her, rampant in the moonlight, he gazed down at her body. "You are as lovely and as perfect as I imagined you would be." Afraid to believe, afraid to trust, she dared a look at him and felt her heart wrench when she read his expression and understood that she truly was whole and beautiful in his eyes. She was a magnificent to him as he was to her.

Suzy Zeus is tense as stemware, not explosive, just on edge— needs a ten-foot wall around her, or at least a ten-foot hedge, Suzy's straining, teeth to toenails, easing backward on the ledge.

You think I don't know what you're doing? This is a typical guy stunt. Protect the helpless female, lead the bad guy away and send her scurrying for help." He put a hand on her cheek. "If he caught up to us and something happened to you… I don't know what I'd do." Her lips trembled, though she tried to look angry. "Macho garbage.

Keeping a professional distance had never been what Vince O'Mally did best. Hell, it was the one thing he wished he could do

I say, 'I will not be your weakness, Sean Kendrick.' Now he looks at me. He says, very softly, 'It's late for that, Puck.

And then I opened my eyes and it was just Grace and me - nothing anywhere but Grace and me - she pressing her lips together as though she were keeping my kiss inside her, and me, holding this moment that was as fragile as a bird in my hands.

Prayer is a confession of one's own unworthiness and weakness

Our enemies can deal a blow to us any time they wish. They did not wait for permission to do this. They do not deal a blow with prior notice. They do not take action because they can't.

How much I love you! How much you are you! and intimidated by his own soul: There is no I now, but she is now in me. No she, but I am in her fragility. How I fear For my dream, lest it see a dream that is not she at The end of this song… — Mahmoud Darwish, from "The Strangers' Walk," Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone? , trans. by Mohammad Shaheen ( Hesperus Press, 2014)

If it was a piece of paper, I would tear it. If it was a bottle, I would break it. If it was a wall, I would tear it down, but it is my heart.

His heart felt dangerously full, for the first time in years. That dried-up battered organ, suddenly flush with love. It could kill him.

At the simplicity of the gesture, he felt a pang: the raw nerve of his loneliness exposed.

No human being, particularly a young, attractive woman, is so alone that there is no one to miss her when she disappears.