Quotes About Vulnerability

Pretending you're OK when you aren't isn't strength.

She raised a hand to her face purely for the purpose of hiding it. She felt suddenly and perilously close to tears.

How easy it was to capitalise on a person's own bent for self-destruction; how simple to nudge them into non-being, then to stand back and shrug and agree that it had been the inevitable result of a chaotic, catastrophic life.

The simplest, most plausible explanation I can think of is that somebody offered her a lift. A car pulled up—" "Or a van," said Strike. Robin had, indeed, reached the same conclusion he had. "Someone she knew—" "Or someone who seemed safe. An elderly man—" "Or what she thinks is a woman." "Exactly," said Robin.

I have forged me in sevenfold heats A shield from foes and lovers, And no one knows the heart that beats Beneath the shield that covers.

Yes. Childhood is the most dangerous place of all. If we had to live there forever, we wouldn't last very long.

LAW 46 Never Appear Too Perfect Appearing better than others is always dangerous, but most dangerous of all is to appear to have no faults or weaknesses. Envy creates silent enemies. It is smart to occasionally display defects, and admit to harmless vices, in order to deflect envy and appear more human and approachable. Only gods and the dead can seem perfect with impunity.

I ain't much for advice. Never been any good with words the way some men are. But I know, sometimes the tears just don't come. When the time comes to start healin', you oughta let yourself.

John Steinbeck wrote in East of Eden: "The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears.

Love brings up everything unlike itself so that you can let go of fear and be the loving person you truly are.

Their nakedness was their armour, their slow tongues their persuasiveness, their weakness demanded God's strength, and found it.

As Anteby and Chan point out, people who fear retribution from the powerful have long used invisibility as a protective cloak.

The officer was also proud of the thick skin he developed during his over twenty years in the U.S. Marines and National Guard—an admirable quality in a soldier or police officer, but it proved to be a double-edged sword

the key to self-awareness isn't found inside our heads; it's in discovering and accepting how others see us—even when it hurts.

Safe is a word that goes much better with sex than science."14

The hypermature man wants laughter, warmth, and closeness, but doesn't know how to achieve them and has difficulty letting himself go long enough to try. Change is slow for him, and he needs a patient partner who can see a great person behind the seriousness. Besides, he will never let you down.

Family life demands emotional doseness. For many silent sons emotional closeness is stressful, even if they want it more than anything else.

Knowing what types of people and problems give you difficulty is the first step toward avoiding psychological vulnerability.

Managers know that to be weak in a world that extols strength and power is to invite abuse.

Robert, there's a creature inside of you that I'm not good enough to bring out, not strong enough to reach. I sometimes have the feeling you've been here a long time, more than one lifetime, and that you've dwelt in private places none of the rest of us has even dreamed about. You frighten me, even though you're gentle with me. If I didn't fight to control myself with you, I feel like I might lose my center and never get back.

there's a creature inside of you that I'm not good enough to bring out, not strong enough to reach. I sometimes have the feeling you've been here a long time, more than one lifetime, and that you've dwelt in private places none of the rest of us has even dreamed about. You frighten me, even though you're gentle with me. If I didn't fight to control myself with you, I feel like I might lose my center and never get back.

Give me all of you, and I'll give you back yourself when we have finished. And in the high country she had screamed aloud in some combination of fear and pleasure. And she had done that once more in a bed in Iowa, then turned the scream into a dwindling, involuntary cry for all the things she had once felt and now felt again with another strange man who lived in his own far places.

the easy way he moved his body, old ways, disturbing ways, ways that draw you in. Ways that whisper to you in the final moment before sleep comes, when the barriers have fallen.

the difficult question these feminists raised: In women's experience, how much consensual sex is consented to but not wanted? How much consensual sex is consented to out of fear? Out of insecurity? How much consensual sex is consented to simply because the woman finds it easier to have sex than to try to communicate with the man about her emotional state at the moment?