Quotes About Vulnerability

Drugs. If they did not exist our governors would have invented them in order to prohibit them and so make much of the population vulnerable to arrest, imprisonment, seizure of property, and so on.

I'm afraid that I've always been jealous of those I care about, and since they are so very few, one's apt to become ridiculously jealous. Sooner or later, I always blame myself. I always try to forgive. And I think I do. Only Ã¢â'¬Â¦Ã¢â'¬Â The mouth was suddenly compressed to a straight line. "I never forget.

That was my first instinct -- to protect him. It never occurred to me that there was a greater need to protect myself. Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.

Insecurity is the worst sense that lovers feel: sometimes the most humdrum desireless marriage seems better. Insecurity twists meanings and poisons trust.

I have no need to write to you or talk to you, you know everything before I can speak, but when one loves, one feels the need to use the same old ways one has always used. I know I am only beginning to love, but already I want to abandon everything, everybody but you: only fear and habit prevent me.

She couldn't avoid being serious about things she cared for, and happiness made her grave at the thought of all the things which might destroy it.

He was like a child with haemophilia: every contact drew blood.

His question reminded me of how easy he had been to deceive, so easy that he seemed to me almost a conniver at his wife's unfaithfulness, as the man who leaves loose banknotes in a hotel bedroom connives at theft, and I hated him for the very quality which had once helped my love.

He put his mouth on her and kissed her on the cheek; he was afraid of the mouth-thoughts travel too easily from lip to lip.

I am late,' she said, 'I know that I am late. So many little things have to be done when you are alone, and I am not yet accustomed to being alone,' she added with a pretty little sob which reminded me of a cut-glass Victorian tear-bottle. She took off thick winter gloves with a wringing gesture which made me think of handkerchiefs wet with grief, and her hands looked suddenly small and useless and vulnerable.

The hurt is in the act of possession: we are too small in mind and body to possess another person without pride or to be possessed without humiliation.

The Lord is my shepherd. But if we are sheep why in heaven's name should we trust our shepherd? He's going to guard us from the wolves all right, oh yes, but only so that he can sell us later to the butcher.

Everyday life seems so permanent and unshakable?but, as I was reminded by these writers, it can be destroyed by a single phone call.

The argument of danger only applies to those who live in relative safety. (The Power and the Glory)

A frigid woman is never jealous, you simply haven't caught up yet on ordinary human emotions.

Innocence always calls mutely or protection when we would be so much wise to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.

Why [...] do I love this place so much? Is it because here human nature hasn't had time to disguise itself? Nobody here could ever talk about a heaven on earth. Heaven remained rigidly in its proper place on the other side of death, while on this side flourished the injustices, the cruelties, the meanness that elsewhere people so cleverly hushed up. Here you could love human beings nearly as God loved them, knowing the worst: you didn't love a pose, a pretty dress, a sentiment artfully assumed.

There was something defenceless, it seemed to Scobie, in his whole attitude: he stood there waiting for people to be friendly or unfriendly- he didn't seem to expect some reaction more than another. He was like a dog. Nobody had yet drawn on his face the lines that make a human being.

face a little smudged with tears. She asked, 'Was it

She had so much more capacity for love than I had - I couldn't bring down that curtain round the moment, I couldn't forget and I couldn't not fear. Even in the moment of love, I was like a police officer gathering evidence of a crime that hadn't yet been committed [...]

She had so much more capacity for love than I had. I couldn't bring that curtain round the moment, I couldn't forget and I couldn't not fear.

If only it were possible to love without injury—fidelity isn't enough: I had been faithful to Anne and yet I had injured her. The hurt is in the act of possession: we are too small in mind and body to possess another person without pride or to be possessed without humiliation.

Tacitamente, l'innocenza chiede sempre protezione, quando invece sarebbe molto più saggio se fossimo noi a proteggerci da essa. L'innocenza è come un lebbroso istupidito che ha perso il suo campanello, e che vaga per il mondo senza l'intenzione di far del male a nessuno.

myself. Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.