The Unsettled Quotes

“Let me tell you something. It's not easy to do what you're asked to do when you don't know why. A whole lot harder than acting up every time things aren't how you like them. A lot harder than having a hissy fit because you happen to look up one day and notice the people around you aren't doing so good. Because you all the sudden decide you're going to pay attention.”
― Ayana Mathis, The Unsettled

“Women had their cycles, you know. I was never so disgusted by my own body. We had pallets the relief gave out. I was on that pallet with a plague of flies all around me. I couldn't get off it because the first few days we was there they didn't have anything for girls on their monthly and there weren't rags or anything to spare. A circle of blood spread around me, from my knees up to my back. I was beyond shame. You don't think about things like that-when people tell you about wars and disasters, they leave out body shame. A body won't stop doing even when the world is ending; it just keeps on. Nasty machine.”
― Ayana Mathis, The Unsettled

“You got to watch out for a vine—you think it’s holding you up, but half the time it’s choking you out.”
― Ayana Mathis, The Unsettled

“I do my best to keep up morale and get us to stick together, but you know, you can lead a donkey right down to the water’s edge but the motherfucker still might kick you in the head.”
― Ayana Mathis, The Unsettled

“Dutchess called God the "Everlasting." Did Pastor Phil think the Everlasting answered prayers?
“Sure! mean, your grandmother wrote to you, didn't she?”
"I didn't pray for that."
"Oh. Yeah. Well, you know what I mean."
Pastor Phil said God was unfathomable, but God heard her.
And Toussaint too, and all the billions of the living. God might respond in hours or days. Or it might take years, or it might seem like there wasn't any response at all, but that wasn't true. It was just that sometimes people couldn't understand what God said. For my thoughts are not your thoughts; nor are your ways my ways. Pastor Phil said that a lot. Then she'd stare misty-eyed out of a window, especially if it was nighttime. She told Toussaint that waiting for God could be agonizing. But God sits with people in their travail.”
― Ayana Mathis, The Unsettled

“…pretty like the saddest thoughts are pretty. That’s what a song does, that’s its job. But that’s the sheen music puts on a thing, that’s nostalgia. And I hate it because it makes ugly things beautiful.”
― Ayana Mathis, The Unsettled

“Mostly people don’t want to pay you any mind, Toussaint has learned. It’s just they think they have to, some of them, but if you give them any excuse at all they’ll go right back to only minding about themselves.”
― Ayana Mathis, The Unsettled

“Things change, young fella. The fact that everything alive has to go away is the saddest and prettiest thing in the world.”
― Ayana Mathis, The Unsettled

“Cari said, ‘Y’all, come on out of the cold.’ You understand? It was time to put that life away for something better.”
― Ayana Mathis , The Unsettled

“When you’re somebody’s mother you can’t admit that you can’t manage the mothering.”
― Ayana Mathis, The Unsettled

“Toussaint is the kite and Ava is the string.”
― Ayana Mathis, The Unsettled

“What they don’t know is God helps people invent the God they deserve.”
― Ayana Mathis, The Unsettled