The Story of Land and Sea Quotes

“Children, even the most shy and tongue-tied, spill all their vibrancy out into the world. There are no reserves, no deep wells where emotion sinks and is buried.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Story of Land and Sea

“In the night he dozes and wakes, and wonders what leaving means.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Story of Land and Sea

“She has begun to understand that her life is small, and she cannot accept smallness.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Story of Land and Sea

“There are ghosts of the dead and ghosts we create from nothing, just to have the company.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Story of Land and Sea

“If there is joy in life, it lies in patience, in watching the Lord’s creations unfold.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Story of Land and Sea

“In the absence of the beloved, there is new space for guilt and should-have-dones. Regret only exists once the opportunity for change is gone.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Story of Land and Sea

“Moll does not think of herself as a demonstrative mother. She does not heap praise upon her children; her attentions are aimed at keeping them out of trouble. Her son and the daughters that trail after him like stepping stones are still young, not yet caught in the violence that will become mundane. But what she would tell her son, if she could find the words and if he would sit still enough to hear them, is that he is the reason she still exists.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Story of Land and Sea

“There is something unprotectable about a boy. The journey he makes, to life or death, is simply the one he forges.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Story of Land and Sea

“shoulder and thanks her. “I’m almost sorry you two didn’t run off after all. I think it might’ve been just the thing for her.” “It seems this town won’t let people go,” he says.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Story of Land and Sea

“When he laughs, she wants to swim into him. She knows that his pleasure is not in her dream’s absurdity, but in its aptness.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Story of Land and Sea

“People want what isn’t given to them. And this is not sin, but hope. What if God didn’t put us here to accept, but to struggle? Isn’t love itself built of that precise impossible hope?”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Story of Land and Sea

“If she began now to doubt, if she studied unhappiness rather than duty, she might find her own life vulnerable.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Story of Land and Sea

“Bodies are weak, just flesh and bowels. Men should be surprised that they live at all.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Story of Land and Sea

“When folk die, it’s just their bodies. There’s something inside that stays alive always.” “Our souls,” Tab says.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Story of Land and Sea