Lionel Shriver Quotes

I'm a little bit tough because I can't afford to get my heart broken.

I'm thirty-six years old and I've been married once and he left and I don't want to feel this way anymore. Like I can't be vulnerable. Can't relax. It's exhausting, always being on the defensive, keeping my guard up. I feel like Cuba.

I carry my unwritten poems in cipher on my face!

Jude's fourth law: Caring equals vulnerability. Never show either.

He clings to his solitude, to his affected indifference and his grown-up ways, but it's just an act, so as never, never to show his real feelings.

I learnt early to have little expectation so I protected myself from ever feeling greatly disappointed.

Anybody who wears their feelings on their sleeve and has a harder, crusty shell - like I do - is definitely protecting an inner sensitivity.

I do always have a wall up. But I feel by doing it, I keep myself safe.

I feel pressure, but my emotions just don't show that much in my face.

I wouldn't tell Jill how I felt. I behaved in such a way that was opposite to how I felt. I must have seemed strong to her. I didn't want to bring her down.

I was a very defensive kid 'cause I was really sensitive underneath and didn't want people to know. So I came off as very tough and very angry.

I just get really defensive as soon as anyone comes near my personal life. I made a decision early on that it's strictly off-limits. No exceptions.

I'm a private person. And I have a certain way in which I protect myself. I don't openly wear my feelings.

Anybody could say anything they want about me, and it literally never penetrates my skin.

I'm the kind of person who doesn't let anyone in easily.

When you trust, and you open your heart, and you think - well, maybe not heart - when you put down your guard and you let someone in and they betray you, that guard goes up really hard.

The arrows of malevolence ... however barbed and well pointed, never can reach the most vulnerable part of me; though, whilst I am up as a mark, they will be continually aimed.

When I see a new face, something sets off an alarm bell inside me. 'slow down! Danger!' Even when the attraction is strongest, I am on my guard.

Now and then one sees a face which has kept its smile pure and undefiled. It is a woman's face usually; often a face which has trace of great sorrow all over it, till the smile breaks. Such a smile transfigures: such a smile, if the artful but knew it, is the greatest weapon a face can have.

A clown needn't be the same out of the ring as he has to be when he's in it. If you look at photographs of clowns when they're just being ordinary men, they've got quite sad faces.

She was not one for emptying her face of expression.

But whereas a puppy will cringe away or roll on its back, groveling, a little boy may cover his shyness with nonchalance, with bravado, or with secrecy. And once a boy has suffered rejection, he will find rejection even where it does not exist-or, worse, will draw it forth from people simply by expecting it.

Often a silent face has voice and words.

You're a pretty cool customer, huh?" says Agent Hunt. "I hide my inner pain under my stoic visage." Agent Hunt looks like he would like to put his fist through my stoic visage.

And often, glad no more, We wear a face of joy because We have been glad of yore.