Quotes About Vulnerability

Eye contact creates wars, creates fights, but eye contact also creates arousal. I felt the weird, pointless tingles, and I read his face and his smile. I tried to look inside him, see what he was feeling, while at the same time guarding myself.

He asked, May I kiss you? I stopped blinking. The six lanes of traffic stopped moving. That question made the world stop spinning. A chill ran up and down my spine. My hands opened and closed a thousand times.

I read this book, it said a woman should think of her virginity like it's a window. And every time you sleep with a guy, it's like letting him put his fingerprints on your window. Staining your glass.

That's what sex does: it starts relationships and it verifies the end of relationships.

I heard you on the phone with her. I happened to be in your arms, and you happened to be inside of me, balls deep from what I remember, so I felt the difference, felt what you felt for her, heard how your voice changed when you talked to her.

She was exposed now. It wasn't the undressing that made her naked. It had been the tears.

We'd had sex like we were whores to each other, and when it was done, we each moved to our side of the bed, boxers going to their corners, then when it was time the imaginary bell rang and we went at it again.

All I wanted was you. I tore down my wall for you. Now it's been rebuilt.

I let my towel drop to the carpet. Nakedness stared at nakedness, and nakedness smiled.

Sleeping with strangers will have you walking with enemies.

I went to public school but kept to myself. When you live in a brothel, you don't want anyone coming to your home.

He made himself comfortable on his back and I climbed him, straddled his face . . . and leaned toward the headboard so I could keep my balance and stay in control, so I wouldn't fall on his nose.

Her young lover changed positions, grabbed her and pulled her rear up high . . . went inside her at a brand-new angle, stroked and grunted. . . . Like he wanted to crawl inside her.

He . . . took his wedding ring off, as if he had meant to do it while I showered, then put it on the nightstand, as if that was all it took for a married man to become unmarried . . .

You are always naked when you start writing; you are always as if you had never written anything before; you are always a beginner. Shakespeare wrote without knowing he would become Shakespeare

All natural disasters are comforting because they reaffirm our impotence, in which, otherwise, we might stop believing. At times it is strangely sedative to know the extent of your own powerlessness.

I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged...I had poems which were re-written so many times I suspect it was just a way of avoiding sending them out.

And it all comes out so lame. I love your mouth. I love your hair. I love your ears. I want you. I want you. I want you. Anything to avoid saying: I love you.

Beware of the man who wants to protect you; he will protect you from everything but himself

It is hard to open yourself to someone who might really love you. I kept trying to drive Ken away and he kept passing the test by staying.

Blush like you mean it

The truth is we all want to be known. And we're simultaneously afraid of it. We want to be unmasked, and the person who can unmask us wins our respect.

I had forgotten how awful it was to be a woman alone--the leering glances, the catcalls, the offers of help which you dared not accept for fear of incurring a sexual debt. The awful sense of vulnerability. No wonder I had gone from man to man and always wound up married. How could I have left Bennett? How could I have forgotten?

You're afraid he'll leave you and you'll fall apart. You don't know that you can get along without him and you're afraid to find out because then your whole potty theory will come tumbling down. You'll have to stop thinking of yourself as weak and dependent and you hate that.