Quotes about Vulnerability

Truth be told, most of us are faking our way through life. We pick only those battles we are sure to win, only those adventures we are sure to handle, only those beauties we are sure to rescue.

I knew you were behind the tapestry," he said. "I also knew the railing was about to give way. I was waiting for you, waiting for your fall." Waiting all my life for you, he added silently, waiting all my life for you to fall in love with me.

Kenric grabbed her arms and pulled her closer, shaking her once. "I've told you it will make no difference! Why are you doing this?" "Because I love you," she whispered brokenly. Those were the words. Of any she could have said to him, those were the only ones that could crumble his defenses. He'd heard them too often in his mind, certain she would never think to use them as a weapon. They sliced through him as cleanly as the sharpest knife.

I don't understand why people say that I am full of courage. I feel terribly nervous.

When I think about any of the missteps in my life that I've made, all of which I'm grateful for, it's because I just so wanted to be truly seen and heard for who I am and was afraid I wasn't or wouldn't be.

We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins.

The risks of liberty we must let everyone take; but the risks of ignorance and self-helplessness are another matter.

Weak people want to marry strong people who do not frighten them too much; and this often leads them to make the mistake we describe metaphorically as "biting off more than they can chew.

While the heart beats, bruise it--it is your only opportunity

We are poor plants buoyed up by the air-vessels of our own conceit: alas for us, if we get a few pinches that empty us of that windy self-subsistence.

In young, childish, ignorant souls there is constantly this blind trust in some unshapen chance: it is as hard to a boy or girl to believe that a great wretchedness will actually befall them as to believe that they will die.

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.