Quotes About Vulnerability

The big eyes and lips said: I'm young and vulnerable, I can't hurt you, and you want to protect me. And the rest said: I'm healthy, I won't make you sick. And no matter how you felt about a pretty, there was a part of you that thought: If we had kids, they'd be healthy too. I want this pretty person.…

She pulled away, his grip no stronger than the strands of a spider web.

Maybe this time she could show him what was really inside her, deeper than any operation could reach.

Yes, it's a bit like learning French. When you open your mouth, you risk sounding like an idiot. But if you don't take that chance, you'll never speak at all.

I believe that you can't know courage without conquering fear, and you can't really know joy without knowing sadness.

What is the sound of an eighty-nine-year-old heart breaking?

The partition between love and anger is thin. I suppose it's a need to protect the self from further wounding that makes people scream at the one they love.

This intimacy is not necessary; no one is compelling me to open my inmost self and lay it naked, undefended, against that of another – merely for the joy of the communion.

The point of making children sleep alone, according to Western psychologists, is to make them "self-soothing," but that clearly runs contrary to our evolution. Humans are primates—we share 98 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees—and primates almost never leave infants unattended, because they would be extremely vulnerable to predators. Infants seem to know this instinctively, so being left alone in a dark room is terrifying to them.

And yet when I went to sleep, it was like I became part of some larger human experience that was utterly heartbreaking. It was far too much to acknowledge when I was awake.

must say, if ever I do come across a man who seems to feel for me at all, I immediately assume he's actually quite shallow-hearted, so I have no need to expose myself to potential embarrassment.

How could she have imagined he wasn't the one? The one she hid from and looked for. The one who held her and heard her and made her more alive, more in love, than she'd realized. The one who taught her how to trust in and lean on and sink into another person. The one who argued and angered, who stood firm and held tight, who kissed her and touched her and made her see the stars. Adam Grayson was the man she could depend on, could trust. Could love.

Perhaps Vulnerability was a land that, for some people, could never be entirely traversed.

Al igual que el resto del mundo, nací desnuda.

I had three long conversations with Marusya over a cup of coffee. She told me her whole rather silly story. To some degree we became friends. I like people like that--doomed, dying, helpless, and brazen. I always say, if you're in trouble, you're not sinning.

The secret of being wrong isn't to avoid being wrong! The secret is being willing to be wrong.

The secret of being wrong isn't to avoid being wrong! The secret is being willing to be wrong. The secret is realizing that wrong isn't fatal.

It's what we wrestle with every single day. The intersection of comfort, danger, and safety. The balancing act between vulnerability and shame. The opportunity (or the risk) to do art. The willingness to take responsibility for caring enough to make a difference and to have a point of view.

Sometimes, never let them see you sweat, is truly bad advice. The work of an individual who cares often exposes the grit and determination and effort that it takes to be present. Perfecting your talk, refining your essay and polishing your service until all elements of you disappear might be obvious tactics, but they remove the thing we were looking for: you.

When we recognize the fraud for what it is, we feel incredibly stupid. Something more than our bank accounts is damaged—our egos are damaged. As a result, it's almost impossible for the marketer to regain our trust.

When those in power use shame to bully the weak into compliance, they are stealing from us. They tell us that they will expose our secrets (not good enough, not hardworking enough, not from the right family, made a huge mistake once) and will use the truth to exile us from our tribe. This shame, the shame that lives deep within each of us, is used as a threat. And when those in power use it, they take away part of our humanity.

Eye contact, all by itself, is enough to throw your lizard brain into a tizzy. Imagine how scary it must be to set out to do something that will get you noticed, or perhaps even criticized.

If school is about postponing the day you have to stand up in front of the world and put yourself at risk, the resistance would like to stay there forever.

We're so obsessed about the risk of shining brightly that we've traded in everything that matters to avoid it.