Quotes About Vulnerability

I suppose you do love me, in your way," I said to him one night close to dawn when we lay on the narrow bed. "And how else should I love you —in your way?" he asked. I am still thinking about that.

Love does not make me gentle or kind.

he stood against the wind and let it peel him clean

Humans in love are terrible. You see them come hungering at one another like prehistoric wolves, you see something struggling for life in between them like a root or a soul and it flares for a moment, then they smash it. The difference between them smashes the bones out. So delicate the bones.

Language is what eases the pain of living with other people, language is what makes the wounds come open again.

I had not been in love before. It was like a wheel rolling downhill.

Love does not happen without loss of vital self. The lover is the loser. Or so he reckons. But his reckoning involves a

And the reason he cannot bear her dying is not the loss of her (which is the future) but that dying puts the two of them (now) into this nakedness together that is unforgivable.

To feel anything deranges you. To be seen feeling anything strips you naked.

In later years this is the one memory he wishes would go away and not come back. And the reason he cannot bear her dying is not the loss of her (which is the future) but that dying puts the two of them (now) into this nakedness together that is unforgiveable. They do not forgive it. He turns away. This roaring air in his arms. She is released.

Your separateness could kill you unless I take it from you as a sickness.

You know who I am. You know my naked power.

He felt Herakles' hand move on his thigh and Geryon's head went back like a poppy in a breeze --

It is a black-and-white photograph showing a naked young man in fetal position. He has entitled it "No Tail!" The fantastic fingerwork of his wings is outspread on the bed like a black lace map of South America.

To feel anything deranges you. To be seen feeling anything strips you naked. In the grip of it pleasure or pain doesn't matter. You think what will they do what new power will they acquire if they see me naked like this. If they see you feeling . You have no idea what . It's not about them . To be seen is the penalty.

I wondered if in even the strongest of marriages there always existed a fault line and it just took one major, earth-shattering disaster to reveal it.

He's fine. He's fine,' he kept saying as the baby became ever more cranky and bewildered; screaming in terror if she tried to put him down. 'Why should he be unhappy?' she wanted to say. 'He has had so few days in this world. Why should the unhappiness start here?

Labor is the closest a woman may ever be to the threshold between life and death while she is still very much alive.

I am afraid of being infected," they tell him, "but I am even more afraid of being left alone.

Love takes a leap of faith. It's an act of courage.

Turning around is a courageous choice —it's hard to do! It can hurt to take the plank out of your own eye, confront the past, change your focus, die to your pride, admit your wrong, deny your vengeance, face the person, risk another wound. And it takes courage to say you're sorry

He'd forgotten the most important condition that made it possible for him to go on living: that he should never again grow fond of anyone

I love readings and my readers, but the din of voices of the audience gives me stage fright, and the din of voices inside whisper that I am a fraud, and that the jig is up. Surely someone will rise up from the audience and say out loud that not only am I not funny and helpful, but I'm annoying, and a phony.