Quotes About Vulnerability

What if I can't get it up?" Guy wailed. "That's of no importance if you're on the right end of a whip.

They kept flipping back and forth, but it wasn't clear which was the more exquisitely pleasurable pain, to penetrate or to be penetrated.

her husband a grown man, afraid to sleep alone in his own house, he who for many a year struck terror into her and Eleanora.

tears running down her cheeks and her nose, tears from the cold and the prospect of being absent for weeks.

it was then I cried, cried for the fact of not having cried and for the immensity of tears yet to be shed.

Quite unselfconsciously she ran her hands along her neck, all along the sides and then to the back to feel the stiffnesses, and though she had not asked me I felt without the words that she wished me to massage her and I did, searching out the knots and the crick, then along the nape, under her swallow, holding the bowl of her head in my hands, entreating her to let go, to let go of all her troubles

pouring her troubles out in order for her daughter to know the deep things, the wounds she had to bear:

motherless mothers with their skinless mysteries.

Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf mean who's afraid of the big bad wolf…who's afraid of living without false illusions

Honey: I know these people ...

But the experience of the world, from China to Britain, has exposed the vain attempt of fortifying any extensive tract of country. An active enemy, who can select and vary his points of attack, must, in the end, discover some feeble spot, on some unguarded moment. The strength, as well as the attention, of the defenders is divided; and such are the blind effects of terror on the firmest troops, that a line broken in a single place is almost instantly deserted.

He there experienced that the most absolute power is a weak defence against the effects of despair.

For what fortress, (added Attila,) what city, in the wide extent of the Roman empire, can hope to exist, secure and impregnable, if it is our pleasure that it should be erased from the earth?

Women are like parasitical plants, casting their wild tendrils from one tree to another, till, swollen into tough cordage, they strangle those they embrace, and luxuriate in their decay.

Aware that a man has no more chance with a woman, armed with the offensive and defensive weapons of tongue, tears, nails, and bamboo, than in a river with an alligator, I, for the first time in my life, acted prudently, and fled the fight.

Keller hesitated. "I suppose," he said pleasantly, "that any system that gives power to a particular class will tempt that class to exploit the powerless. It seems to be human nature.

The shock of standing again under the wide pale sky, completely exposed. This must be what the oyster feels when the lemon juice falls.

a face like a crème brûlée after the first blow of the spoon

Why had he said, 'Some combination of pride and terror'? Did he still think it was uncool to admit to any enthusiasm, even in front of his greatest friend?

Shame is the deep sense that you are unacceptable because of something you did, something done to you, or something associated with you. You feel exposed and humiliated. Or, to strengthen the language, You are disgraced because you acted less than human, you were treated as if you were less than human, or you were associated with something less than human, and there are witnesses.

The first steps out of shame will be the hardest. These are the anti-denial steps in which we will put shame into words. You can't do battle with something nameless, and too often shame eludes accurate identification. So we will search for words that bring shame out into the open, where it can be seen and fought against.

People familiar with shame are willing to wash feet, but they are uncomfortable with other people washing their feet. They are better at serving than being served. Well, get used to being served.

He says "I love you" first, even when we respond with an indifferent shrug or the equivalent of a passing, "Oh, thanks." And in this we discover why it might be hard for us to move toward others: the one taking the initiative in the relationship—the one who loves most—is the one who risks humiliation.

a lingering sense that something was very wrong with him. That sense is called shame.