Quotes About Vulnerability

I understood that in this small space of time we had mutually surrendered our loneliness and replaced it with trust.

I'm going to promote myself exactly as I am, with all my weak points and my strong ones. My weak points are that I'm self-conscious and often insecure, and my strong point is that I don't feel any shame about it.

Careful how you bare yer soul Careful not to bare it all

the incisive observational powers of a female surgeon cutting out her own heart.

I stand naked when I draw. God holds my hand and we sing together." His manifesto as an artist.

I'm sure I could write endlessly about nothing. If only I had nothing to say.

But now Americans, they felt a sense of peace and protection because they've been separated by so many thousands of miles of ocean. And you know, the fact that it's come to the U.S. like this is so sad, and yet you know, what can you do? It's here.

For a man who finds life tolerable only by staying on the surface of himself, it is natural to be satisfied with offering no more than his surface to others. There are few demands to be met, and no commitment is required. Marriage, on the other hand, closes the door. Your existence is confined to a narrow space in which you are constantly forced to reveal yourself – and therefore, constantly obliged to look into yourself, to examine your own depths.

but the truly frightening thing was to learn that his mother was no stronger than he was, that the blows of the world hurt her just as much as they hurt him and that except for the fact that she was older, there was no difference between them.

I chanced upon these words from a letter by Van Gogh: "Like everyone else, I feel the need of family and friendship, affection and friendly intercourse. I am not made of iron, like a hydrant or a lamp post. Perhaps this is what really counts: to arrive at the core of human feeling, in spite of the evidence.

There was nothing to see, nothing to distract me from succumbing to my fears, and the longer I kept my eyes shut, the more terribly I saw my fears wanted me to see.

guns were a complicated business, and once you pointed a weapon at someone, especially someone with a weapon of his own, the thing you were counting on to protect you was just as likely to turn you into a corpse.

One must die lovable (if one can). You are moved by this sentence, especially by the words in parentheses, which demonstrate a rare sensitivity of spirit, you feel, a hard-won understanding of how difficult it is to be lovable, especially for someone who is old, who is sinking into decrepitude and must be cared for by others. If one can. There is probably no greater human achievement than to be lovable at the end,

Mr. Blank's old friend is acting up again, and because our hero is no longer wearing the cotton trousers and underpants and is quite naked under the pajama bottoms, there is no barrier to prevent Mr. Bigshot from bounding out through the slit and poking his head into the light of day.

Impossible, I realize, to enter another's solitude. If it is true that we can ever come to know another human being, even to a small degree, it is only to the extent that he is willing to make himself known.

But laugh laugh at me Men from around the world especially people from here For there are so many things I don't dare tell you So many things you wouldn't let me say Have pity on me

Adolescence feeds on drama, it is most happy when living in extremis, and Ferguson was no less vulnerable to the lure of high emotion and extravagant unreason than any other boy his age ...

Asking forgiveness from someone is a complicated affair, a delicate balancing act between stiff-necked pride and tearful remorse, and unless you can truly open up to the other person, every apology sounds hollow and false.

Adolescence feeds on drama, it is most happy when living in extremis, and Ferguson was no less vulnerable to the lure of high emotion and extravagant unreason than any other boy his age, which meant the appeal of a girl like Anne-Marie was fuelled precisely by her unhappiness, and the greater the storms she engulfed him in, the more he wanted her.

If people never learned the truth about him, then they couldn't turn around and use it against him. The lie was a way of buying protection.

Whatever you see has the potential to wound you, to make you less than you are, as if merely by seeing a thing some part of yourself were taken away from you.

Mildred was capable of crying, but there they were weeping in front of him as they said good-bye to each other, both of them understanding that it could be months or years before they saw each other again, and Ferguson saw it as he stood below them in his five-year-old's body, looking up at his mother and his aunt, stunned by the excess of emotion pouring out of them, and the image traveled to a place so deep inside him that he never forgot it.

The walking wounded, opening their veins and bleeding in public.

Ik houd mezelf voor dat ik beter moet weten dan zo verbaasd te reageren, dat de dingen nu eenmaal zo lopen in de wereld, dat we allemaal sterfelijk zijn en dat ons einde zich elk moment kan aandienen. Maar een objectief beeld biedt geen greintje troost. Het hart bloedt. En daar bestaat geen remedie tegen.