Quotes About Vulnerability

Never before in civilization have such numbers of young girls been suddenly released from the protection of the home and permitted to walk unattended upon the city streets and to work under alien roofs.

ties knotted to a wasp's waist at his neck.

Stanley Baldwin, then deputy prime minister, gave the House of Commons a forecast of what was to come: "I think it is well for the man in the street to realize that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed. Whatever people may tell him, the bomber will always get through." The only effective defense lay in offense, he said, "which means that you have to kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves.

There are some things I must try to say before the still watches come again in which the things unsaid hurt so and cry out in the heart to be uttered.

of mounting threat.

He was really having a hard time with this. He was not a seductive kind of guy, and if he tried to be sexy, he was going to sound like Romeo, the porn version.

Angel? he whispered in the dark. Yes? What does it feel like to love someone? A lump caught in my throat and I lightly ran my fingers down his bare arm. It feels like this. That's what I thought. -Erin McCarthy/The Coming Dark

Then he was forming letters again, one at a time on her back, while Laurel clung to him, full of heart and body, still joined to him intimately. Wanting his words, needing them, moved profoundly by them. I love you. One letter after the other, until they were all there, telling her everything she needed to know here in the dark.

I'm not backing down until you talk to me. What? I asked, cupping my hand to my ear. I can't hear you over the flapping sound of my loose vagina. The corner of his mouth lifted, and he almost laughed. Is that what that noise is? he asked. I thought it was the air conditioner.

Jess? Yeah? Would you be okay with it if I fell in love with you? My hear squeezed and I paused, my mouth a hairbreadth from his as I took in his words, as if I could breathe them into my mouth, my heart, my soul. Yeah, I whispered. I'd be very okay with it.

I want to have sex with you he told her back. Touch you until you squirm with pleasure. Laurel's head shot around. What did you say? Oh, shit. He had never actually verified how much or how little Laurel could hear.

You make me better, you know that? I'm a fucked-up human being, but you make me better. Promise me if I don't make you happy, you'll toss me aside, no matter how much pressure I put on you. Because even though I can be selfish, all I really want is for you to be happy.

Do you understand?" I nodded. He kissed me again. "Do you trust me?" I nodded. His lips buried in my neck. "Do you want me?" Nod. "Absolutely." "Then don't be afraid. Don't ever be afraid when you're with me." "I won't," I whispered

The only confession Jolene had ever wrenched from him was that he had cared about her.

I feel like you hate your life more than you could ever love me. And I was stupid to think otherwise. I guess it's true what they say—love makes you stupid. Even a girl like me.

There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, 'Yes, I've got dreams, of course I've got dreams.' Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to look in it, and yep, they're still there. These are great dreams, but they never even get out of the box. It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to hold them up and say, 'How good or how bad am I?' That's where courage comes in.

Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a car battery.

William James said long ago, solitude is the greatest terror of childhood.

the neurotic symptom is a communication about truth: that the illusion that one is invulnerable is a lie.

It achieves the very result that the child has painfully built his character over the years in order to avoid: it makes routine, automatic, secure, self-confident activity impossible. It makes thoughtless living in the world of men an impossibility. It places a trembling animal at the mercy of the entire cosmos and the problem of the meaning of it.

One of the main reasons that it is so easy to march men off to war is that deep down each of them feels sorry for the man next to him who will die. Each protects himself in his fantasy until the shock that he is bleeding.

I'm not brave any more darling. I'm all broken. They've broken me.

It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing.

Keep right on lying to me. That's what I want you to do.