The Everlasting Quotes

“I've never done a thing as great as made a man, but were I your silent God, I'd sob to see my creations split themselves asunder.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Everlasting

“The thought of her body having a purpose was natural and pleasurable, but the purpose that was proposed–spitting out another human, and having a foreign object stuck into it along the way–seemed inadequate. To be poked into and pushed out of, like something static, something without legs, without a brain.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Everlasting

“[I find myself at your feet. Child, listen: you won't find a man worthy of you in heaven—I've been there.]”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Everlasting

“You have claws and teeth and a roaring heart.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Everlasting

“When did a human first consider her own beauty? [When another human first denied it. Cf. Adam re: Eve. I, the snake, was the soother. Ask your questions; I, Satan, am the answerer.]”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Everlasting

“She swung the net idly through the stream, steering clear of the lines, but the glory was in the hook. A fish caught up in her little net was a lazy one, too dumb to know better, while the perch that fell for the well-threaded worm was a noble foe. Struggle was good; passivity was weak. Except when the opposite was true, as in the case, sometimes, Jesus, and in the case, all the time, of women.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Everlasting

“She used to think it was in one's bearing, that if she carried herself like Leonor of Toledo, with leopard steps and unblinking eyes, no one would have the room to question her. But even the whitest woman was blacker than a man.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Everlasting

“The water crowded with microscopic action, with bloomings and sex and feasts.”
― Katy Simpson Smith, The Everlasting