"I don’t know just when Snake was done. I had made a tetrahedral piece in brass in 1961, several plaster models, and one other piece in wood before Snake. The latter was probably made just after Die. It began as a chance arrangement of units. At first there was not a particular base, the final form being arrived at out of the need for stability. As in other cases, the title came later. It was taken from John McNulty’s 'Third Avenue Medicine.' ‘The snake is an ordinary little vein, or maybe it is an artery, that runs along the left temple of a man’s head'."
- Tony Smith on The Snake Is Out