Quotes About Vulnerability

If a bullet's going to get you, it's already been fired.

Shaving is a way to start the workday by ritually not cutting your throat when you've the chance.

Laser technology has fulfilled our people's ancient dream of a blade so fine that the person it cuts remains standing and alive until he moves and cleaves. Until we move, none of us can be sure that we have not already been cut in half, or in many pieces, by a blade of light. It is safest to assume that our throats have already been slit, that the slightest alteration in our postures will cause the painless severance of our heads.

Spelling is a way to make words safe, at least for now, until another technology appears to soften attacks launched from the mouth.

How did one even fraternize with people who could not entertain vivid scenarios of self-mutilation? How was the sexual act even possible if one's partner could not entertain being crushed under a truck, just as a cathartic exercise? What important piece of her brain was missing that deprived her of such, well, deeply necessary acts of physical editing ?

You will not fight in the shield wall," my father said. "No, Father." "Only men can stand in the shield wall," he said, "but you will watch, you will learn, and you will discover that the most dangerous stroke is not the sword or ax that you can see, but the one you cannot see, the blade that comes beneath the shields to bite your ankles.

To fight battles, Derfel,' he corrected me, 'on behalf of people who can't fight for themselves. I learned that in Brittany. This miserable world is full of weak people, powerless people, hungry people, sad people, sick people, poor people, and it's the easiest thing in the world to despise the weak

Put a cat to watch a flock and the wolves eat well.

If you collect a fat flock, you don't leave it grazing beside a wolf's den.

This was a clever man, as clever as Alfred, and he knew that weakness invited war.

That was why he was thinking about vultures. He was thinking that he wanted to run, but that he did not want to feed the vultures. Do not get caught. Rule number one in the army, and the only rule that mattered. Because if you got caught the bastards would flog you to death or else reorganize your ribs with musket balls, and either way the vultures got fat.

Your answer to the truth," I sneered, "is to threaten a woman with death?

Put a cat to guard the sheep and the wolves would eat well.

weakness invites war

Remember the old saying, my lady," he said slyly. "Put a cat to watch a flock and the wolves eat well.

They have no idea we're here. And stupidity gets you killed.

Being born a Jew meant being vulnerable to history, including its worst errors. Accident and history had involved Yakov Bok as he had never dreamed he could be involved. The involvement was, in a way of speaking, impersonal, but the effect, his misery and suffering, were not. The suffering was personal, painful, and possibly endless.

Write your heart out.

Era in balia di ogni soffio di vento, non possedeva nulla.

I have seen human beings who have forged intellectual armor to shield themselves from adversity. They seemed stronger than most. They said, I couldn't care less, and laughed at everything, but when adversity managed to pierce their armor, it caused terrible damage. I have seen human beings suffer from the slightest adversity, the slightest annoyance, but still remain open-minded and sensitive to everything, learning something from each attack.

Cuando nos abrimos, tú a mí y yo a ti, cuando nos sumergimos, tú en mí y yo en ti, cuando nos olvidamos, tú en mí y yo en ti. Sólo entonces, yo soy yo y tú eres tú.

ich weiß, dass Verleugnen ist eine unscheinbare Varianten des Verrats. Von außen ist nichts zu sehen, ob einer verleugnet oder nur Diskretion übt, Rücksicht nimmt, Peinlichkeiten und Ärgerlichkeiten meidet. Aber der, der sich nicht bekennt, weiß es genau. Und der Beziehung entzieht das Verleugnen ebenso den Boden wie die spektakulären Varianten des Verrats.

Pero, en el amor, el otro nunca está disponible.

If we were all given by magic the power to read each other's thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be almost all friendships would be dissolved; the second effect, however, might be excellent, for a world without any friends would be felt to be intolerable, and we should learn to like each other without needing a veil of illusion to conceal from ourselves that we did not think each other absolutely perfect.