Quotes About Vulnerability

Upper lamp on lowest gain glowing down to white sheets and yellow hair and golden skin—so much gold for so little skin—and all of it, the gently rising flat tummy, the wide eyes closed or shielded or hidden, the positively dreamlike sweep of lines from throat to forehead and back again to the partial view of more yellow hair, but tufted, promising more hair and more gold . . . all of it glowing back up into the lamp, shaming it. Shaming me.

Maybe-- maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure-- never sure of her because you aren't sure of yourself?

Trouble with mice is you always kill 'em.

I'm jus' pain covered with skin.

It would be a dreadful thing to tell anyone about it, for it would destroy some fragile structure of truth. It was truth that might be shattered by division.

Her shame and fierceness were blended.

When you're huntin' somepin you're a hunter, an' you're strong. Can't nobody beat a hunter. But when you get hunted - that's different. Somepin happens to you. You ain't strong: maybe you're fierce, but you ain't strong. - Muley

You're not clever. You don't know what you want. You have no proper fierceness. You let other people walk over you. Sometimes I think you're a weakling who will never amount to a dog turd. Does that answer your question? I love you better. I always have.

They were fed and clothed and taken care of until they were too old, and then they were kicked out. This ending was no deterrent. No one who is young is ever going to be old.

It was not a safe thing to lead Joe into temptation; he had no resistance to it at all.

Curley's wife lay with a half-covering of yellow hay. And the meanness and the plannings and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face. She was pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young. Now her rouged cheeks and reddened lips made her seem alive and sleeping very lightly. The curls, tiny little sausages, were spread on the hay behind her head and her lips were parted

Perhaps it is so with everyone, that he looks for weakness in the strong to find promise of strength in his weakness.

Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure—never sure of her because you aren't sure of yourself?

Why do you got to get killed? You ain't so little as mice.

Here you play in the street, little chicken. Some day an automobile will run over you; and if it kills you, that will be the best thing that can happen. It may only break your leg or your wing. Then all of your life you will drag along in misery. Life is too hard for you, little bird.

It is not true as is romantically presumed that people frightened or injured or persecuted are wakeful. More often than not they retire into sleep to be free of trouble for a time.

Casy gathered in his canvas sneakers and shoved his bare feet into them. I ain't got your confidence, he said. I'm always scared there's wire or glass under the dust. I don't know nothin' I hate so much as a cut toe.

She felt hurt that he had agreed so easily. And she laughed sourly at herself that she could ask a thing and be hurt when she got it.

And once a boy has suffered rejection, he will find rejection even where it does not exist-or, worse, will draw it forth from people simply by expecting it.

Nearly everyone has his box of secret shame, shared with no one.

He had drawn a derogatory statement from George. He felt safe now.

Ale já se takovejch moc pÄ›knejch vÄ›cí bojím.

You wouldn't lay a trap for me? Lee asked. My wish isn't as strong as it once was. I'm afraid I could be talked out of it or, what would be worse, I could be held back just by being needed. Please try not to need me. That's the worst bait of all to a lonely man.

And then the men lay down and put their heads in the girls' laps and looked up into their faces. And they smiled at each other, a tired and peaceful and wonderful secret.