E. T. A. Hoffmann Quotes

There is much good luck in the world, but it is luck. We are none of us safe. We are children, playing or quarrelling on the line.

I feel confidence in myself, but at the same time there's these cracks in the facade and those little things underneath that are unstable.

He's seeing my soul, my fears, my fragility, my inability to deal with a world which i pretend to master, but about which I know nothing

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.

Women play with their beauty as children do with their knives. They wound themselves with it.

There is no shelter in you anywhere.

We are little flames poorly sheltered by frail walls against the storm of dissolution and madness, in which we flicker and sometimes almost go out…we creep in upon ourselves and with big eyes stare into the night…and thus we wait for morning.

I'm not trying to imply I can keep up this silent, isolated facade all the time. Sometimes the wall I've erected around me comes crumbling down. It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes, before I even realize what's going on, there I am--naked and defenseless and totally confused. At times like that I always feel an omen calling out to me, like a dark, omnipresent pool of water. ~page 10

I'm not a fighter, I'm a bleeder.

I am a thinned-skinned type. I am very sensitive, very emotional. Vulnerability is kind of always a part of my day.

The world is fine. Our place on it is precarious.

You spend so much time, so much effort, trying to hold yourself together. And then everything falls apart anyway.

If you owned everything and a tiny little piece gets out of control, then your world's gone. Like some unusual child who has a million toys and one of them is stolen, he's going to perish.

Security is elusive. It's impossible. We all die. We all get old. We all get sick. People leave us. People change us. Nothing is secure.

Sex finds us. Sex sees through us. That's why it's so shattering. It strips us of appearances.

Everyone is broken a little, I think, and the most broken of all are those who pretend they are not.

When we meet someone and fall in love, we have a sense that the whole universe is on our side. And yet if something goes wrong, there is nothing left!

Destiny urges me to a goal of which I am ignorant. Until that goal is attained I am invulnerable, unassailable. When Destiny has accomplished her purpose in me, a fly may suffice to destroy me.

Destiny is a tower of cards - nudge one just an inch and everything stacked on top comes crashing down. P116

Lately, the world felt fragile, like a blown egg, as if it might shatter beneath a careless touch.

I wanted always to appear strong and in control . . . .Then the cookie began to crumble.

An appearance of delicacy, and even fragility, is almost essential to beauty.

A weak background is a deadly thing.

If I run or breathe too deep, the cheap stitches holding me together will snap, and all the stickiness inside will pour out and burn through the concrete.

But relying on one person for your every need is so dangerous. One set of hands isn't enough to keep you from falling.