Quotes & Sayings About Having A Hard Exterior

When school is not a good fit for a boy, when his normal expressions of energy and action routinely meet with negative responses from teachers and classmates, he stews in feelings of failure - feelings of sadness, shame, and anger, which can be very hard to detect beneath that brash exterior. Unable to "talk out" the emotional pressure, boys typically act out through verbal or physical aggression that walls them off emotionally from others, straining or severing emotional connections to the people and circumstances they find painful. And the worse a boy behaves, the more he invites negative reactions from teachers and other adults. — Dan Kindlon

I could only nod as emotions rolled in like a destructive storm. This was it. It was over. My incredible time with this beautiful talented man was up. I had to clench my teeth and swallow hard to mask the loss that threatened to overcome my calm exterior. I was holding on for dear life then he said two words with pure tranquility. — Nicole Castro

she knew the effort it took to keep one's exterior self together, upright, when everything inside was in pieces, broken beyond repair. One touch, one warm, compassionate hand, could shatter that hard-won perfect exterior. And then it would take years and years to restore it. So — Melanie Benjamin

I hear Warner laugh.
I see him smile.
It's the kind of smile that transforms him into someone else entirely, the kind of smile that puts stars in his eyes and a dazzle on his lips and I realize I've never seen him like this before. I've never seen his teeth
so straight, so white, nothing less than perfect. A flawless, flawless exterior for a boy with a black, black heart. It's hard to believe there's blood on the hands of the person I'm staring at. He looks soft and vulnerable
so human. His eyes are squinting from all his grinning and his cheeks are pink form the cold.
He has dimples.
He's easily the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
And I wish I'd never seen it. — Tahereh Mafi

I brought a coconut cream pie, Mom's favorite. Coconut's hard, dirty, shaggy exterior didn't promise much. But when you cracked it open and then cleaned it up, it surprised you with the smooth white riches inside. In a coconut shell, this was my mother's mission in life- to tackle the litter, the dust, the stains, the residue of life and tidy them all up. Her sweet reward was that exotic state of everything-in-its-clean-place, always a mirage in the distance while she was living with Helen. Coconut cream pie fed her soul. — Judith Fertig

She met Bonnie's eyes with her own surge of admiration. Everything she knew or suspected about the girl was swamped by a sense that here was a very special person, with talents in abundance. Her understanding of human complications had doubtless been gained through hard experience, giving her a core of steel beneath her fragile exterior. At the same time, this was balanced by an alarming tendency to ignore authority, to march into situations that she couldn't control and to lie her way out of trouble if it suited her. — Rebecca Tope

I closed my eyes, grief spilling up through me. You'd think that after all these years of hurting, of saying goodbye to her over and over in my head, that this moment would be easier. Yet it wasn't. Because for a few brief weeks, I'd thought I'd be able to have my little sister back. That I could heal up some of the gaping wounds in my soul I'd pasted over with brash words and a hard exterior. — Shannon Mayer

Do you know how long it takes to charm people from Maine? They're uptight white people coated with a hard exterior made from other uptight white people. — Joel Stein

Rose was unravelling my hard exterior and helping me realize the boy I use to be was still there. I walked around like I had a death wish, taking unnecessary risks because my reason for living had vanished, but now that she was back I had to do everything I possibly could to fight for us; to fight for her. — Teresa Mummert

I was wondering how the old Silas ever broke through your hard exterior." She laughs. "What makes you think he did?" I would smile again, but I don't think I've stopped. "You saw the video, Charlie. You loved him." I pause for a second, then rephrase. "Me. You loved me." " She loved you," Charlie says, and then smiles. "I'm not even sure if I like you yet. — Colleen Hoover

It is hard that a man's exterior should tally so little sometimes with his soul. — W. Somerset Maugham

Vivien felt at peace with the world as she walked away from the tattered, run down orphanage. The donation of the female robots, gifts and money she'd donated would enhance and change the children's lives, futures and provide them witj opportunities. She wasn't a Saint or a martyr but she concluded, perhaps somewhere below her hard exterior, formed through the necessity of hustling to provide for herself, perhaps there was a compassionate, unselfish person with a deep empathetic nature, that had never truly been allowed to exist or realized until this moment in time. — Jill Thrussell

What treaty is it that finally separates those two territories, the hard resolve of our exteriors and the terrible disaster on our insides? — Ben Marcus