Quotes About Vulnerability

that falling to pieces serves nobody. You can't help anyone else hold themselves together if you yourself are scattered to the wind.

I know you're lonely, Mama," he whispers, his voice half-choked with sleep. "And sometimes… so am I.

Most urgently, women's identity must be premised upon our 'beauty' so that we will remain vulnerable to outside approval, carrying the vital sensitive organ of self-esteem exposed to the air.

I feel that 'The Great Failure' is really a book written out of great love and a willingness to face all of who a human being is.

If something comes up in your writing that is scary or naked, dive right into it. It probably has lots of energy.

Don't cross out. (That is editing as you write. Even if you write something you didn't mean to write, leave it.) Don't worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar. (Don't even care about staying within the margins and lines on the page.) Lose control. Don't think. Don't get logical. Go for the jugular. (If something comes up in your writing that is scary or naked, dive right into it. It probably has lots of energy.)

We have to accept ourselves in order to write. Now none of us does that fully: few of us do it even halfway. Don't wait for one hundred percent acceptance of yourself before you write, or even eight percent acceptance. Just write. The process of writing is an activity that teaches us about acceptance.

LIFE IS NOT ORDERLY. No matter how we try to make life so, right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, drop a jar of applesauce.

Reach out of the deep chasm of your loneliness and express yourself to another human being.

Don't worry, no one ever died of it. You might cry or laugh, but not die.

We must continue to open in the face of tremendous opposition. No one is encouraging us to open and still we must peel away the layers of the heart.

Begin to write in the dumb, awkward way an animal cries out in pain, and there you will find your intelligence, your words, your voice.

Our ideas and intentions can mask and cover up a story; there is a life force that will declare itself if you let it. Get out of the way.

Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.

Your afraid the sly little things will steal your heart if the find out you have one - Natalie Savage Carlson " The Family Under The Bridge

If you'd only let me come by myself, none of this would have happened. Having you around makes everything worse.' She buried her head under her pillow. 'Stop it! you're so cold! You're heartless, you little robot!' The pillow muffled her words, but they still stung. 'I feel things,' I said. 'I'm not a robot!' I stamped my foot and screamed. Then I burst into tears. I touched the wet little drops and held them toward her. 'See, I'm not a robot. This is proof.

The whole world is pressing in on me, like a weight on my chest, slowly pushing me down and down. And there's nothing between me and this weight but my flimsy skin. It's not enough. It won't protect me. It doesn't keep anything out. The outside will keep pressing in until my ribs are crushed, and then my organs, my heart and liver and stomach....

I wanted to like people. It worried me that I didn't.

I felt like you could open a door in my hollow, tin chest--just flip it open, easy--and see my heart throbbing, raw and bloody and sore. You could even reach in and squish it if you wanted to. I didn't want anyone getting close enough to open that door and see that mess (250-251).

Before he sat down, my internal heat-seekers sensed what was coming my way: deep blue eyes that melted girls like Velveeta in a microwave. I tried to resist those microwave eyes, but sometimes there's no defense against them. I had a feeling I'd be seeing him weeping over my coffin later that night.

El amor enloqueció a Norrie. Espero que nunca me pase a mí.

its more a trance, jonah said. the whole world is pressing in on me, like a weight on my chest, slowly pushing me down ans down. and there's nothing between me and this weight but my flimsy skin. Its not enough. It won't protect me. It doesn't keep anything out. The outside will keep pressing until my ribs are crushed.

vulnerability equals weakness, and weakness arouses contempt. I had only to hide my longing and my desire, and they would be fulfilled. Or at least they'd have a chance.

I couldn't even go to the bathroom alone. My mother or a social worker always went with me.