Top 450 Delia Owens Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “What d’ya mean, where the crawdads sing? Ma used to say that.” Kya remembered Ma always encouraging her to explore the marsh: “Go as far as you can – way out yonder where the crawdads sing.”

— Delia Owens

52. “Kya had been of this land and of this water; now they would take her back. Keep her secrets deep.”

— Delia Owens

53. “Love must be free to wander, To land upon its chosen shore And breathe.”

— Delia Owens

54. “Kya never had her troop of close friends, nor the connections Jodie described, for she never had her own family. She knew the years of isolation had altered her behavior until she was different from others, but it wasn’t her fault she’d been alone. Most of what she knew, she’d learned from the wild. Nature had nurtured, tutored, and protected her when no one else would. If consequences resulted from her behaving differently, then they too were functions of life’s fundamental core.”

— Delia Owens

55. “Pa never took her fishing again. Those warm days were just a thrown-in season. Low clouds parting, the sun splashing her world briefly, then closing up dark and tight-fisted again.”

— Delia Owens

56. “Love is too often The answer for staying. Too seldom the reason For going.”

— Delia Owens

57. “Yet in reality, she was only an abandoned child, a little girl surviving on her own in a swamp, hungry and cold, but we didn’t help her. Except for one of her only friends, Jumpin’, not one of our churches or community groups offered her food or clothes. Instead we labeled and rejected her because we thought she was different. But, ladies and gentlemen, did we exclude Miss Clark because she was different, or was she different because we excluded her?”

— Delia Owens

58. “Faces change with life’s toll, but eyes remain a window to what was, and she could see him there. “Jodie, I’m so sorry you worried about leaving me. Not once did I blame you. We were the victims, not the guilty.”

— Delia Owens

59. “Trapped inside, Love is a caged beast, Eating its own flesh. Love must be free to wander, To land upon its chosen shore And breathe.”

— Delia Owens

60. “Sand keeps secrets better than mud.”

— Delia Owens

61. “Then Mr. Daddy Long-legs And Mr. Floppy Fly Rushed downward to the foamy sea With one sponge-taneous cry; And there they found a little boat, Whose sails were pink and gray; And off they sailed among the waves, Far, and far away.”

— Delia Owens

62. “All her life the room had been warmed from baking bread, boiling butter beans, or bubbling fish stew. Now, it was stale, quiet, and dark. “Who’s gonna cook?” she asked out loud. Could have asked, Who’s gonna dance?”

— Delia Owens

63. “I’ve always loved you. Even as a child- in a time I don’t remember- I already loved you.”

— Delia Owens

64. “You were supposed to be different. To stay. You said you loved me, but there is no such thing. There is no one on Earth you can count on.” From somewhere very deep, she made herself a promise never to trust or love anyone again.”

— Delia Owens

65. “And for the first time in her life, her heart was full.”

— Delia Owens

66. “Well, we better hide way out there where the crawdads sing. I pity any foster parents who take you on.” Tate’s whole face smiled. “What d’ya mean, where the crawdads sing? Ma used to say that.” Kya remembered Ma always encouraging her to explore the marsh: “Go as far as you can – way out yonder where the crawdads sing.” “Just means far in the bush where critters are wild, still behaving like critters. Now, you got any ideas where we can meet?”

— Delia Owens

67. “Why she hadn’t embraced the comfort he could give her in this place. It seemed that now, Kya being more vulnerable than ever, was reason to trust others even less. Standing in the most fragile place of her life, she turned to the only net she knew – herself.”

— Delia Owens

68. “There were also drawings of the creatures who live inside – how they eat, how they move, how they mate – because people forget about creatures who live in shells.”

— Delia Owens

69. “To the Feather Boy Thank you From the Marsh Girl.”

— Delia Owens

70. “That evening, after the fishing boy led her home through the marsh, Kya sat cross-legged on her porch bed. Mist from the downpour eased through the patched-up screen, touching her face. She thought about the boy. Kind yet strong, like Jodie.”

— Delia Owens

71. “The morning burned so August-hot, the marsh’s moist breath hung the oaks and pines with fog.”

— Delia Owens

72. “Most of what she knew, she’d learned from the wild. Nature had nurtured, tutored, and protected her when no one else would. If consequences resulted from her behaving differently, then they too were functions of life’s fundamental core.”

— Delia Owens

73. “Then she waited, flattened up against the Frigidaire like a roadkill stork.”

— Delia Owens

74. “And I’ll hide the maid in a cypress tree, when the footstep of death is near.”

— Delia Owens

75. “She’d given love a chance; now she wanted simply to fill the empty spaces. Ease the loneliness while walling off her heart.”

— Delia Owens

76. “Tate and life and love had been the same thing. Now there was no Tate.”

— Delia Owens

77. “You told me that fox left her babies.” “Yeah, but that vixen got ’er leg all tore up. She’d’ve starved to death if she’d tried to feed herself ’n’ her kits. She was better off to leave ’em, heal herself up, then whelp more when she could raise ’em good.”

— Delia Owens

78. “Kya never went back to school a day in her life. She returned to heron watching and shell collecting, where she reckoned she could learn something. “I can already coo like a dove,” she told herself. “And lots better than them. Even with all them fine shoes.”

— Delia Owens

79. “You came again, blinding my eyes like the shimmer of sun upon the sea. Just as I feel free the moon casts your face upon the sill. Each time I forget you, your eyes haunt my heart and it falls still. And so farewell until the next time you come, until at last I do not see you.”

— Delia Owens

80. “That’s just grass in the wind.”

— Delia Owens

81. “Kya was the youngest of five, the others much older, though later she couldn’t recall their ages. They lived with Ma and Pa, squeezed together like penned rabbits, in the rough-cut shack, its screened porch staring big-eyed from under the oaks.”

— Delia Owens

82. “Why should the injured, the still bleeding, bear the onus of forgiveness?”

— Delia Owens

83. “She never collected lightning bugs in bottles; you learn a lot more about something when it’s not in a jar.”

— Delia Owens

84. “Nature seemed the only stone that would not slip midstream.”

— Delia Owens

85. “Then, one hand on the tiller, the other on lace, she glided across ocean and estuaries toward home.”

— Delia Owens

86. “Life decays and reeks and returns to the rotted duff; a poignant wallow of death begetting life.”

— Delia Owens

87. “Tate remembered his dad’s definition of a man: one who can cry freely, feel poetry and opera in his heart, and do whatever it takes to defend a woman. Scupper would have understood tracking love through mud.”

— Delia Owens

88. “Sunday Justice, the courthouse cat- his back black, his face white with a black mask around green eyes- stretched out in a puddle of sunlight in one of the deep windowsills. A courthouse fixture for years, he cleared the basement of rats and the courtroom of mice, earning his place.”

— Delia Owens

89. “You disappeared, I know not where. But your wing-marks still linger there. A broken heart cannot fly, But who decides the time to die?”

— Delia Owens

90. “Loneliness has a compass of its own.”

— Delia Owens

91. “Mostly, the village seemed tired of arguing with the elements, and simply sagged.”

— Delia Owens

92. “It seemed to Kya that when Chase played these melancholy tunes was when he most had a soul.”

— Delia Owens

93. “The dishonest signals of fireflies, all she knew of love.”

— Delia Owens

94. “The marsh snuggled in closer with a low fog, and she slept.”

— Delia Owens

95. “Swamp water is still and dark, having swallowed the light in its muddy throat. Even night crawlers are diurnal in this lair. There are sounds, of course, but compared to the marsh, the swamp is quiet because decomposition is cellular work. Life decays and reeks and returns to the rotted duff; a poignant wallow of death begetting life.”

— Delia Owens

96. “Go as far as you can – way out yonder where the crawdads sing.” “Just means far in the bush where critters are wild, still behaving like critters. Now, you got any ideas where we can meet?”

— Delia Owens

97. “She walked to the water’s edge. Chase would not let this go. Being isolated was one thing; living in fear, quite another.”

— Delia Owens

98. “I must let go now. Let you go. Love is too often The answer for staying. Too seldom the reason For going. I drop the line And watch you drift away.”

— Delia Owens

99. “The marsh did not confine them but defined them and, like any sacred ground, kept their secrets deep. No one cared that they held the land because nobody else wanted it. After all, it was wasteland bog.”

— Delia Owens

100. “Maybe some dreams should just fade away.”

— Delia Owens