Quotes About Vulnerability

The more flawed a man was, the shoddier it was to take advantage of his inadequacies to destroy him.

A singer can shatter glass with the proper high note, he said, but the simplest way to break glass is simply to drop it on the floor.

We shall live even in this state of living death, we shall love, we shall feel, we shall defy all who would judge and destroy us.

Do you know what I think about crying? I think some people have to learn to do it. But once you learn, once you know how to really cry, there's nothing quite like it. I feel sorry for those who don't know the trick. It's like whistling or singing.

That is the crowning evil, that we can even go so far as to love each other, you and I. And who else would show us a particle of love, a particle of compassion or mercy? Who else, knowing us as we know each other, could do anything but destroy us? Yet we can love each other.

Why does shame and self-loathing become cruelty to the innocent ?

Because I show you my pain, I do not of necessity love you.

I wasn't sent here to find angels! I wasn't sent here to dream of them. I wasn't sent here to hear them sing! I was sent here to be alive. To breathe and sweat and thirst and sometimes cry.

Anger is too pathetic. Anger is as weak as fear.

I find at moments I'm as fragile as glass.

All my life,I've been afraid of things, as a child and a woman must be. I lied about it naturally. I fancied myself a witch and walked in dark streets to punish myself for my doubts. But I knew what it meant to be afraid. And now, in this darkness, I fear nothing. If you were to leave me here, I would feel nothing. I would walk as I am walking now. As a man, you can't know what I mean by what I say.You can't know a woman's vulnerability. You can't know the sense of power that belongs to me now.

Had I ever loved anyone more than I loved him? Had I ever revealed more of my soul to anyone than I had revealed to him? If my tears spilled now, he would see them. If I trembled now, he would know.

I tucked my arm under my head and started crying like a child. I was perishing from exhaustion. I was worn and miserable and I loved crying. I couldn't do anything else. I gave in to it fully. I felt that profound release of the utterly grief-stricken. I didn't give a damn who saw or heard. I cried and cried.

Fear was once again breaking the shell around me so that something else could spring to life.

I was feeling fear. Not a wild, mortal fear, but something cold like a hook in my side.

I was still sitting there, too unsure of myself to say anything, when Nicolas kissed me. 'Let's go to bed,' he said softly.

Malady of mortality

His eyes closed for a split second and he sank against Armand's shoulder, feeling Armand's hand on his back. Far away he heard Armand's voice: "What do I do with you, my beloved? Especially now, when I myself am so afraid.

even if you make them, they'll turn on you, rob you, betray you, and take off with someone else.

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.

Don't ever think that two is enough," Benedict said. "Don't ever imagine it. And don't ever be crippled by believing that you cannot live without one other being, and only that being. You must have more than that to love, because loving, loving keeps us alive, loving is our best defense against time, and time is merciless. Time is a monster. Time devours everything.

He stood in the doorway, holding the back of his own arms. And I knew what I felt. It was a monstrous intimacy with another being, an intimacy that made even the rapt moments of life seem dim and under control. Never, never in all my existance had I been threateened with an intimacy quite like this.

Why do we weep when we see something beautiful? Why are we weakened by beauty? Why does it break our hearts?

I lived like a man who wanted to die but who had no courage to do it himself. I walked black streets and alleys alone; I passed out in cabarets. I backed out of two duels more from apathy than cowardice and truly wished to be murdered. And then I was attacked. It might have been anyone-and my invitation was open to sailors, thieves, maniacs, anyone. But it was a vampire. He caught me lust a few steps from my door one night and left me for dead, or so I thought.