The toughness I was learning was not a martyred doggedness, a dumb heroism, but the art of accommodation. I thought: to be tough is to be fragile; to be tender is to be truly fierce.
I worked hard at becoming a professional football player, just like society says you should. It said you had to be fierce. I was fierce. Tough. I was tough.
I'm tough when I have to be, tender when I should be. When you find a really tough guy, he's not a predator. He doesn't have to prove himself. Guys who have to pretend to be tough, they ain't. I'm tough.
Man, when living, is soft and tender; when dead, he is hard and tough. All animals and plants when living are tender and delicate; when dead they become withered and dry. Therefore it is said: the hard and tough are parts of death; the soft and tender are parts of life.
Fathers need to be tough and tender...you be tough for your family, be tender with your family. You protect them, and you be a safe place.
There's hockey and football players tougher than me, there's gangbangers tougher than me. But my toughness is more, Jesus said "Be of tough mind, but tender heart; be tough as a serpent, but tender as a dove." That's who I am and what I do.
Children are never too tender to be whipped. Like tough beefsteaks, the more you beat them, the more tender they become.
Fierce eagles breed not the tender dove.
I am drawn to those parts; I like the tough girls because they are not tough. It's a veil; it's a disguise. It's defenses. At the core, everybody is human, everybody is fragile, everybody is terrified, and the fear is what propels you to be tough.
To kids, I've always been more than just some big tough black guy. I train to be tough - I box and do karate - but underneath all that toughness is a tender man.
But when I came back into the city for the first time last November, I thought every truck, every building was going to blow up. It has truly changed me something fierce.
Did you really think I was too fragile to know what Deryn was?" "Fragile?" Volger looked about. "I hadn't thought so, but now I find you brooding in a bathroom. This doesn't speak well of your sturdiness.
God, make me a man with thick skin and a soft heart. Make me a man who is tough and tender. Make me tough so I can handle life. Make me tender so I can love people. God, make me a man.
Mortals are such fragile things. Just tender feelings walking around exposed in their delicate shells...Easy to crush.
I'm tender when I need to be. I'm tough when I should to be.
Children are tough, though we tend to think of them as fragile. They have to be tough. Childhood is not easy. We sentimentalize children, but they know what's real and what's not. They understand metaphor and symbol. If children are different from us, they are more spontaneous. Grown-up lives have become overlaid with dross.