cut to the quick

Likewise, a later debate about abortion vs. abandonment cuts to the quick for the characters — as when someone asks: which is less of a sin?

But he was cut to the quick by the official discharge.

Taylor Gilbert, the founder and co-artistic director of the Road Theatre Company, says she was taken with how the story “cuts to the quick of relevant issues with humor and heart.”

These are brave films that cut to the quick of alcoholism’s cost.

Hall’s adaptation cuts to the quick of the novel and transfers the shifting, unsettling quality of Larsen’s text back onto the viewer’s shoulders.