I Love Vulnerability Quotes & Sayings

I love finding the vulnerability in characters. There's truth there. There's beauty in vulnerability. — Juan Pablo Di Pace

I survived this torture which left me paralyzed for years. That's what that night was all about, mutilation, more than violence through sex. I really do feel as though I was psychologically mutilated that night and now I'm trying to put the pieces back together again. Through love, not hatred. And through my music. My strength has been to open again, to life, and my victory is the fact that, despite it all, I kept alive my vulnerability. — Tori Amos

It has a lot to do with developing patience, not with the check-out person so much, but with your own pain that arises, the rawness and the vulnerability, and sending some kind of warmth and love to that rawness and soreness. I think that's how we have to practice. — Pema Chodron

I can spend years studying and being in therapy and having a very analytic spiritual meditation practice, but without the emotional component, without the softening that comes with love and vulnerability, everything else I do is really just surface. — Moby

I'm alive and capable of love, and love is a fucking river. It's never ending and it flows through us, all around us, keeps us alive and decadent, fierce from struggle and genuine in our vulnerability. I — Daniel Jose Older

Listen, Harriet. I do unterstand. I know you don't want either to give or to take ... You don't want ever again to have to depend for happiness on another person."
"That's true. That's the truest thing you ever said."
"All right. I can respect that. Only you've got to play the game. Don't force an emotional situation and then blame me for it."
"But I don't want any situation. I want to be left in peace. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Love is a connection with another person, either through birth or through something else that I cannot even explain. It is often just an attraction at first. But it goes far deeper than that. It is a determination to care for the other person no matter what and to allow oneself to be cared for in return. It is a commitment to make the other happy and to be happy oneself. It is not possessive, but neither is it a victim. And it does not always bring happiness. Often it brings a great deal of pain, especially when the beloved is suffering and one feels impotent to comfort. It is what life is all about. It is openness and trust and vulnerability. — Mary Balogh

I realise and finally acknowledge that at the core I am only a lover. Of life. Of beauty. Of love. Of being in love. Of kindness. Of words. Of conversations. Of dreams. Of imagination. Of ideas. Of realness. Of vulnerability. Of solitude. Of Silences. Of companionship. Of poetry. Of music. Of movement. Of stillness. Of energy. And, when the lover in me is stifled,starved, not finding resonance, is misunderstood, is dulled or ignored, I question my very existence because I do not feel alive. When the lover in me dies, everything in me dies. I realise that my inner fire is only a lover. I have no other identity of self than as a lover. — Srividya Srinivasan

I loved you on purpose
i was open on purpose
i still crave vulnerability & close talk
& i'm not even sorry bout you bein sorry
you can carry all the guilt & grime ya wanna
just dont give it to me
i cant use another sorry
next time
you should admit
you're mean/ low-down/ triflin/ & no count straight out
steada bein sorry alla the time
enjoy bein yrself — Ntozake Shange

It would be nice if the story ended differently - if he had burst into tears and professed his love for me; if he had said the same three words back and hugged me; if he had given it thought and then asked if we could try a relationship.

But you know what? I said those three words to a boy who didn't love me back, at least not in that way. He casually dropped a "love you" later on, and in a platonic 'you have impacted my life' way, he was telling the truth. But I knew. He had given it thought, and we were not on the same page. I built up all this courage to say "I love you" for the very first time, and I said those words to a person that couldn't reciprocate them.

But guess what?

I don't regret any of it. — Stephen Lovegrove

When someone in vulnerability tells you everything they've known has fallen apart, the correct response is not to quote scripture, the correct response is not biblical apologetics, the correct response is a hug. The correct response is to say, I love you. They have to encounter an impossible love. It's the only way the gospel comes to life. — Mike McHargue

So much of what I love about poetry lies in the vast possibilities of voice, the spectacular range of idiosyncratic flavors that can be embedded in a particular human voice reporting from the field. One beautiful axis of voice is the one that runs between vulnerability and detachment, between 'It hurts to be alive' and 'I can see a million miles from here.' A good poetic voice can do both at once. — Tony Hoagland

The more you experience love, the more full of it you should be. But the opposite sometimes happens, because you fear the loss of life. You fear the vulnerability that can take the goodness of it away. This might have happened because when i was just a kid, i had the sense that your whole life can change with a death in the family. It's like they say - at least i say - It's the loss of money that leads to the love of it. You know, the people who care about money are never the people who made a lot. They're the people who have lost a lot. And I think that might be true in relationships, when if you've lost somebody important to you early on, you live in fear of that the rest of your life. I suppose that's one of the things that I would fear, and that might explain the rage you referred to earlier, which is real in me, at some point, it really is. An odd thing to own up to, but I do know it's true. — Michka Assayas

I honestly do not know if love vanquishes death as our traditional faiths teach but I do know that our vulnerabilities trump our ideologies and that love leavens the purity and logic of our beliefs propelling us to connect as the fiercely gracious human beings we are. — Irwin Kula

I was ashamed by my vulnerability. Nergal had really broken me. I tried so hard to stay strong, but my body couldn't handle my determination. Eventually, I gave in to what I thought was my ultimate demise. Although my body was still weak, one look at my savior refreshed my will to live, to be strong. I looked longingly into the depths of his eyes, trying to convey my love for him, but there was no way to show how my heart beat just for him. He wasn't my soul mate, he was my soul. — L.J. Kentowski

I love when you take bizarre, non-human things and somehow make them human or accessible. I think that's why I like the practical effects. You can look at a creature and still see vulnerability or the character behind the creature. To get character behind CG creatures, that's so few and far between. — Kevin Munroe

Many people see vulnerability as weakness when it's the only way to truly grow and truly love. Love makes me feel vulnerable. It's like saying, "I'm an open book. Here are my flaws, my strengths, where I fall short, my dreams - and I'm choosing to share them with you." — Betsy Landin

Take any emotion - love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions - if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them - you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. "But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, 'All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment'. — Mitch Albom

I love Cate Blanchett. She's extremely classy and has this knack for taking on roles and being very, very strong, but also embedding vulnerability. She has this relatable quality. I like the path she chose. — Ashley Greene

You haven't yet opened your heart fully, to life, to each moment. The peaceful warrior's way is not about invulnerability, but absolute vulnerability
to the world, to life, and to the Presence you felt. All along I've shown you by example that a warrior's life is not about imagined perfection or victory; it is about love. Love is a warrior's sword; wherever it cuts, it gives life, not death. — Dan Millman

I love his dear eyes in which the vulnerability and beauty of his soul can be plainly read. — Alice Walker

I would love to do some more comedy. I would love to do some silliness. I would love to do some characters that have greater vulnerability. — Kari Matchett

Only out of great vulnerability do you discover what strength you have. Having a daughter who I love with all my being has helped me mine the source of that strength to previously unknown depths. — Emilia Fox

I would love to do some characters that have greater vulnerability. I don't know why. I know I can play these roles, but they're certainly not the only roles I can play. — Kari Matchett

I didn't say a word. He wouldn't be using oxygen. K2 is more dangerous than Everest. — Susan Oakey-Baker

I think this is the way love feels to people like you and me. Threatening and dangerous. We have to be in control, and love takes that away. People like us ... We can't tolerate vulnerability. But despite our best efforts, sooner or later love seems to catch up with us. And then ... And then we fall apart. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Now I can lean into joy, even when it makes me feel tender and vulnerable. In fact, I expect tender and vulnerable. Joy is as thorny and sharp as any of the dark emotions. To love someone fiercely, to believe in something with your whole heart, to celebrate a fleeting moment in time, to fully engage in a life that doesn't come with guarantees - these are risks that involve vulnerability and often pain. When we lose our tolerance for discomfort, we lose joy. In fact, addiction research shows us that an intensely positive experience is as likely to cause relapse as an intensely painful experience. — Brene Brown

Sophie(female): This life is not worth living without the people that make us want to tear down those walls. The thrill of vulnerability the danger of opening your heart. It makes us feel alive.
Parker(female): I feel alive when I'm jumping down a building.
Sophie(female): Maybe that's why they call it 'Falling in love — Leverage Sophie And Parker

The weight of his words settled in the pit of my stomach. Old fears and worries stirred in the depths of my thoughts. How I wanted to believe him, to trust him, to love him. But the flip side of the wild desire to give him everything was the chilling knowledge of what usually happened when I followed my heart, or my body - both of which wanted to surrender to Julian utterly. — Gwen Mitchell

Baby, I'm sorry," he said dropping his forehead to mine in a rare moment of vulnerability. His voice was rough and shaky. "Help me. Please. I don't know what I'm doing here."
"What are you trying to do?" I asked.
He raised up, just enough to look me in the eye. "I'm trying to love you. — T.M. Frazier

I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. My inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: Love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity to name a few. — Brene Brown

The more I try to impress people, the more I separate myself from them. Vulnerability attracts love. — Donald Miller

I think there's always a bit of insecurity in love, if you truly love somebody. If you open yourself up, if you allow yourself to be hurt, there's potential vulnerability. That's real love. Somebody can stomp all over you if you really love them, and you give them your heart anyway. — Fred Schruers

Pristine vulnerability is just so boring to me. The performances that I love are ones like Gena Rowland's in 'A Woman Under the Influence,' where women are allowed to be messy and imperfect. It's that kind of woman that has always inspired me to seek roles that are a little out of the box. I just haven't always had the opportunity to do them. — Kirsten Dunst

Vulnerability is huge. I love to see that in characters. It's something I feel like a lot of my comedic heroes have always done. — Ed Helms

I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. With that definition in mind, let's think about love. Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can't ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment's notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow - that's vulnerability. — Brene Brown

Most of you have been where I am tonight. The crash site of unrequited love. You ask yourself, How did I get here? What was it about? Was it her smile? Was it the way she crossed her legs, the turn of her ankle, the poignant vulnerability of her slender wrists? What are these elusive and ephemeral things that ignite passion in the human heart? That's an age-old question. It's perfect food for thought on a bright midsummer's night. — Sybil Adelman

I am a great believer in not pushing each other's "buttons" just because we know where they are! That's part of trusting each other. We need to trust that our vulnerabilities and challenges are safe with the person we love. — Cathy Burnham Martin

Well, any love makes us vulnerable. Whatever we love will give the gift of pain somewhere along the road. But who would live sealed in spiritual cellophane just to keep from ever being hurt? There are a few people like that. I'm sorry for them. I think they are as good as dead. — Gladys Taber

It's fair to say that, by 'X-Men 3,' Wolverine had gone a little soft, and I agree with them there. What fans love about Wolverine is his more uncompromising approach to life. He is who he is. He's not always a nice guy. He has got edge. He's an anti-hero. And, there's also a vulnerability in there. There is conflict and battles going on in there. — Hugh Jackman

In December, Angela Lansbury had been signed to play Raymond's mother, the arch-villainess Eleanor Shaw Iselin. Apparently, Sinatra originally wanted Lucille Ball for the role, a fascinating casting notion, as Tom Santopietro points out: "As Ball aged, she grew into an increasingly hardened performer, losing all traces of the vulnerability that so informed her brilliant multiyear run on television's I Love Lucy. The resulting quality of toughness would have suited the role of [Eleanor] very well, although it is anyone's guess whether or not Ball would have felt comfortable delving into the dark recesses of [her] warped character. — James Kaplan

I wanted to badly to be vulnerable over a burger, beer, and bags of free books we find on some stranger's porch. You wanted badly to be touched some thousand miles away and never found the time to write me back. — Darnell Lamont Walker

The tendency in our spiritual life but also our more general attitude toward love is that our feelings are all that is going on. And so to us the totality of love is what we feel. But to really love someone requires commitment, fidelity and vulnerability. Mother Teresa wasn't "feeling" Christ's love, and she could have shut down. But she was up at 4:30 every morning for Jesus, and still writing to him, "Your happiness is all I want." — Brian Kolodiejchuk

I just love dressing up in everything a man is supposed not to be, in all that vulnerability, sweetness, preciousness and impracticality. — Grayson Perry

Something cascaded lightly through me - a gentling, a suffused glow. If love could be morphed into a physical element, this would be it. It was strength and yet it was vulnerability. It was all-encompassing and yet it was freedom. It was a wall of protection. It was wings of trust and faith.
It was Gabriel Ross Sullivan, answering the questions I couldn't ask. Not that everything would be okay, but that everything in his power would be done, and we'd face whatever outcomes there were together. — Linnea Sinclair

I believe that vulnerability - the willingness to show up and be seen with no guarantee of outcome - is the only path to more love, belonging, and joy. — Brene Brown

I have a lot of love to give, and when I give that love and others are able to receive it and show me their vulnerability, I believe that God inhabits that space, which means I basically hang out with God a lot, and that's why I feel hopeful. — Ashley Judd

I am stronger than words and I am bigger than the box I'm in, and then I see her in the crowd and I fall apart. — David Levithan

I want love without drama, romance without pain. I want intimacy without vulnerability. I want a guarantee. I want something that doesnt exist. Maybe we all do. Maybe we're all chasing unicorns. — Josh James Riebock

I enjoy going on stage knowing that there's going to be that vulnerability and that transparency and hopefully things will be realized or accomplished or that confidence will be revealed. I think that's another element that people like about shows: in addition to hearing the songs that they love, I think there are some people who really get off on connecting with what's happening right now. — Jason Mraz

face." I sat spellbound. Here it was - the image of grace I had been seeking: an aspiring father bringing unconditional acceptance to a child who had absolutely nothing to offer, no accolades or accomplishments, just herself in all of her vulnerability and scars and weaknesses. My eyes moistened. This is the love of a dad. Maybe - just maybe - this is the love of a Father. — Lee Strobel

Most of us fall in love with someone's persona and spend the next three to five years discovering who that person really is. If you can stay connected through that process of raw vulnerability, I think you have a shot at the prize of knowing and accepting another human being for who and what they really are after years of highs and lows. — Jennifer Aniston

I feel vulnerable when I have no choice. It segues into every facet of life, whether it's love, work, family, or conservation. Here it is: the whole reason that I started the Ian Somerhalder Foundation was the feeling of complete vulnerability during the BP oil spill. — Ian Somerhalder

true. I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. With that definition in mind, let's think about love. Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can't ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment's notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow - that's vulnerability. Love is uncertain. It's incredibly risky. And loving someone leaves us emotionally exposed. Yes, it's scary and yes, we're open to being hurt, but can you imagine your life without loving or being loved? — Brene Brown

No you're not adventurous, but that doesn't matter. That's precisely what I love about you. Your vulnerability, your shyness. This world is not just for the rash and the fearless, for the loud go-getters-no, the shy and quiet, the dreamy and eccentric have their place there, too. Without them, there world would be no nuances, no light blue watercolours, no unsaid words that give the imagination space to work. And isn't it precisely the dreamers who know the truest and greatest adventures take place in the heart? — Nicolas Barreau

Spirituality emerged as a fundamental guidepost in Wholeheartedness. Not religiosity but the deeply held belief that we are inextricably connected to one another by a force greater than ourselves
a force grounded in love and compassion. For some of us that's God, for others it's nature, art, or even human soulfulness. I believe that owning our worthiness is the act of acknowledging that we are sacred. Perhaps embracing vulnerability and overcoming numbing is ultimately about the care and feeding of our spirits. — Brene Brown

I like to write about people who are real and likeable. I like to write about people who tell their stories in that close and intimate voice we use with best friends. I love the closeness and honesty and vulnerability that come from characters who can talk that way. — Katherine Center

Being onstage is a way of harnessing your vulnerability and using the adrenaline to be creative. It's a very vulnerable place to be - technically, emotionally, and physically - but I love it. — Gary Kemp

I don't believe in true love and I certainly don't believe in love at first sight. Insta-love isn't something that happens in real life. It happens in the books I read, but not in the world I live. Though here stands this beautiful, sexy, funny, sweet and amazing guy who has done everything short of professing love at first sight to me and I'm still standing here like a pair of lungs suffocating, needing him in order to breathe. I'm not running, I'm here, submerged in all of my vulnerability, taking the biggest chance I ever have with my heart and soul. I hope I'm choosing wisely. I stared at the ground and felt his eyes on the top of my head. — Kathryn Perez

The vulnerability of opening your heart fully and deeply to another is terrifying, but at a point in my 50s, I realized that I had to step up to the plate. — Jane Fonda

I love vulnerability. It's what keeps me soft and from becoming emotionally calcified. — Jewel

I think we can all agree that feeling shame is an incredibly painful experience. What we often don't realize is that perpetrating shame is equally as painful, and no one does that with the precision of a partner or a parent. These are the people who know us the best and who bear witness to our vulnerabilities and fears. Thankfully, we can apologize for shaming someone we love, but the truth is that those shaming comments leave marks. And shaming someone we love around vulnerability is the most serious of all security breaches. Even if we apologize, we've done serious damage because we've demonstrated our willingness to use sacred information as a weapon. — Brene Brown

There wasn't anything that I didn't love about her. Her sarcasm and wit were so much fun. She was strong and driven and so good with her creative thinking. She was so caring, and a good friend - she was everything I'd been looking for, when I wasn't even looking. But as strong as she tried to be, there was a vulnerability about her that made me feel so protective of her. I couldn't help that I went all alpha male anytime a man approached her. She had no idea how attractive she is. — Taryn Plendl

I am frightened at the prospect of how much I might love you, because I know the price it brings, and just thinking of you has begun the investment process within my heart. It would be easier to never invest at all, to hold all vulnerability close to my chest, not allowing anyone to enter my safe. But what a cruel thing it would be, to deny an opportunity to love a soul as beautiful as yours. I'm going to hope, and hope, and hope, until one day I do something. Maybe then, we'll be able to find that place that we have both wanted for so long. Maybe then, we'll have each other. I'm not reaching for stars anymore. I'm reaching for you, and honestly, that's far more beautiful than a night full of dancing flames. I am not good with words, but still my words dance out of chaos, forming something beautiful. — Todd B. LaBerge

One of the most difficult things I ever did was learn to support myself through my whole range of emotional experiences without running away. — Vironika Tugaleva

From a Christian point of view of course we do want a peaceful world, and I think September 11 did actually make people aware not only of vulnerability and how transitory life is, but there are forces of good and honor and justice which speak to us of God and his love for us. — George Carey

A day or two after my love pronouncement, now feral with vulnerability, I sent you the passage from Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes in which Barthes describes how the subject who utters the phrase "I love you" is like "the Argonaut renewing his ship during its voyage without changing its name." Just as the Argo's parts may be replaced over time but the boat is still called the Argo, whenever the lover utters the phrase "I love you," its meaning must be renewed by each use, as "the very task of love and of language is to give to one and the same phrase inflections which will be forever new. — Maggie Nelson

Armed I am with love. Disarmed I am. — Manuel Alegre

These times are hard, but I won't walk away jaded, darker, different. I feel. I cry to heal. If you saw me in those moments, maybe you'd think I was a mess. But I don't call it a mess. I call it strength.

Real strength isn't about building walls. Real strength is about staying open, no matter what. It's about taking life - with all the pleasures that fade and all the pain that sticks around for too long - and not shutting down, not closing down, not building up those walls.

Resilience isn't hard, impenetrable, iron. Resilience is flexible, soft, warm.

Stay strong. The real kind of strong. Don't let your automatic mind reflexes make you jump away from pain and towards pleasure. Make choices. See clearly. And never, ever, stop feeling.

Don't go numb. The world, even with all its horror, is too beautiful to miss. — Vironika Tugaleva

If manifestations of her love are overwhelming and sometimes seem imprudent, it's because the intensity of such caring doesn't exist in other areas of life. Ma does not love from behind a protective shield. I'm incapable of opening up to people in the way she does. Ma isn't afraid of being vulnerable and doesn't measure relationships in terms of what she can gain. If her feelings are hurt, she doesn't hide the pain or seek revenge. She stumbles over the setback as though it's one of life's quirky tests of fortitude and moves on without storing any resentment. — Adib Khan

Jim turned his head slowly to look into my eyes and shuddered. It's the closest I've ever felt to dying. — Susan Oakey-Baker

I'm changing and I'm terrified of how weak I feel, how vulnerable my flesh and soul has become because of this girl. — K. Weikel

I understand now that the vulnerability I've always felt is the greatest strength a person can have. You can't experience life without feeling life. What I've learned is that being vulnerable to somebody you love is not a weakness, it's a strength. — Elisabeth Shue

The thing I really love about my fans is the vulnerability and openness, the crying and the hugs. They are so kind. — Mary Lambert

Is it your wish that I should leave you now?" "Why would you think that of me?" His eyebrows rose, the vulnerability gone. "You are not a servant, Mariana, to be thus ordered from my sight." "No," I admitted, looking down at my feet, "I am not a servant. I am a mistress. A minor difference, I'll grant you." His eyes were steady on my face. "You are my love," he corrected me, softly, "and there is no shame in that. Do you wish this afternoon undone?" I raised my head. "No," I told him honestly. "I will not force you to my bed," he said. "I do not want a frightened woman, nor a coy one, but one who gives me love because she wills it so. If I make no promises, it is because the world is an uncertain place, and words matter little. But if you doubt the honor of my love, come," he stretched his hand towards me, palm upward, "let me renew my pledge. — Susanna Kearsley