Top 450 Delia Owens Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “Never underrate the heart capable of deeds the mind cannot conceive.”

— Delia Owens

102. “Months turned into a year. The lonely became larger than she could hold. She wished for someone’s voice, presence, touch, but wished more to protect her heart. Months passed into another year. Then another.”

— Delia Owens

103. “Finally the fear came. From a place deeper than the sea. Fear from knowing she would be alone again. Probably always. A life sentence.”

— Delia Owens

104. “Ya need some girlfriends, hon, ’cause they’re forever. Without a vow.”

— Delia Owens

105. “Op een andere plek, in een andere tijd, hadden een oude zwarte man en een jonge blanke vrouw elkaar kunnen omhelzen, maar niet daar, niet toen.”

— Delia Owens

106. “Those looking for serious land moved on, and this infamous marsh became a net, scooping up a mishmash of mutinous sailors, castaways, debtors, and fugitives dodging wars, taxes, or laws that they didn’t take to.”

— Delia Owens

107. “Go as far as you can – way out yonder where the crawdads sing.”

— Delia Owens

108. “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

109. “When cornered, desperate, or isolated, man reverts to those instincts that aim straight at survival. Quick and just. They will always be the trump cards because they are passed on more frequently from one generation to the next than the gentler genes. It is not a morality, but simple math. Among themselves, doves fight as often as hawks.”

— Delia Owens

110. “Kya looked at her toes. Why should the injured, the still bleeding, bear the onus of forgiveness? She didn’t answer.”

— Delia Owens

111. “Way out yonder, where the crawdads sing.”

— Delia Owens

112. “No longer did she daydream of winging with eagles; perhaps when you have to paw your supper from mud, imagination flattens to that of adulthood.”

— Delia Owens

113. “Some female insects eat their mates, overstressed mammal mothers abandon their young, many males design risky or shifty ways to outsperm their competitors. Nothing seemed too indecorous as long as the tick and the tock of life carried on. She knew this was not a dark side to Nature, just inventive ways to endure against all odds. Surely for humans there was more.”

— Delia Owens

114. “Her impulse, as always, was to run. But there was another sensation. A fullness she hadn’t felt for years. As if something warm had been poured inside her heart.”

— Delia Owens

115. “Amanda Hamilton’s verses: “Never underrate the heart, Capable of deeds The mind cannot conceive. The heart dictates as well as feels. How else can you explain The path I have taken, That you have taken The long way through this pass?”

— Delia Owens

116. “It was you, Tate,” she said, and then thought, It was always you. One side of her heart longing, the other shielding.”

— Delia Owens

117. “I guess some things can’t be explained, only forgiven or not.”

— Delia Owens

118. “Some behaviors that seem harsh to us now ensured the survival of early man in whatever swamp he was in at the time. Without them, we wouldn’t be here. We still store those instincts in our genes, and they express themselves when certain circumstances prevail.”

— Delia Owens

119. “I never hated people. They hated me. They laughed at me. They left me. They harassed me. They attacked me. Well, it’s true; I learned to live without them. Without you. Without Ma! Or anybody!”

— Delia Owens

120. “His desire to protect her was as strong as the other. Sometimes.”

— Delia Owens

121. “I hafta go, Kya. Can’t live here no longer.” She almost turned to him, but didn’t. Wanted to beg him not to leave her alone with Pa, but the words jammed up. “When you’re old enough you’ll understand,” he said. Kya wanted to holler out that she may be young, but she wasn’t stupid.”

— Delia Owens

122. “Sunsets are in disguise, Covering truths, covering lies.”

— Delia Owens

123. “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

124. “Even in nature, parenthood is a thinner line than one might think.”

— Delia Owens

125. “I guess some things can’t be explained, only forgiven or not. I don’t know the answer. Maybe there isn’t one.”

— Delia Owens

126. “When they finally broke into the lagoon, where the ratty shack with rusted-out screens hunkered under the oaks, Maria clutched her youngest child, Jodie, fighting tears. Pa assured her, “Don’t ya worry none. I’ll get this fixed up in no time.” But Jake never improved the shack or finished high school. Soon after they arrived, he took up drinking and poker at the Swamp Guinea, trying to leave that foxhole in a shot glass.”

— Delia Owens

127. “Long-legged birds lift with unexpected grace-as thought not built to fly.”

— Delia Owens

128. “Mad as a mule chewin’ bumblebees.”

— Delia Owens

129. “Ma had said women need one another more than they need men, but she never told her how to get inside the pride.”

— Delia Owens

130. “Jumpin’, you know how it is. They’ll take his side. They’ll say I’m just stirring up trouble.”

— Delia Owens

131. “But just as her collection grew, so did her loneliness. A pain as large as her heart lived in her chest. Nothing eased it. Not the gulls, not a splendid sunset, not the rarest of shells.”

— Delia Owens

132. “Walking into the shack – as she always called it – Tate felt the walls exhaling her breath, the floors whispering her steps so clear he called out her name. Then he stood against the wall, weeping. He lifted the old knapsack and held it to his chest.”

— Delia Owens

133. “He was a page of time, a clipping pasted in a scrapbook because it was all she had. Her heart pounded as the fury dissipated.”

— Delia Owens

134. “Autumn leaves don’t fall; they fly. They take their time and wander on this, their only chance to soar. Reflecting sunlight, they swirled and sailed and fluttered on the wind drafts.”

— Delia Owens

135. “The rest of the small half-moon beach was covered in a thick layer of broken shells, a jumble of crustacean parts, and crab claws. Shells the best secret-keepers of all.”

— Delia Owens

136. “Blending in with the fighting, drinking, cussing renegades of the marsh was the easiest thing Jake ever did.”

— Delia Owens

137. “When the carton was empty she didn’t think she could stand the pain, so afraid they would leave her like everybody else.”

— Delia Owens

138. “In another time and place, an old black man and a young white woman might have hugged. But not there, not then.”

— Delia Owens

139. “Drifting back to the predictable cycles of tadpoles and the ballet of fireflies, Kya burrowed deeper into the wordless wilderness. Nature seemed the only stone that would not slip midstream.”

— Delia Owens

140. “I woke up on the right side of dirt.”

— Delia Owens

141. “Here- instead of the estuaries and enormous sweeps of grass as in her marsh- clear water flowed as far as she could see through a bright and open cypress forest. Brilliant white herons and storks stood among the water lilies and floating plants so green they seemed to glow. Hunched up on cypress knees as large as easy chairs, they ate pimento-cheese sandwiches and potato chips, grinning as geese glided just below their toes.”

— Delia Owens

142. “We called her the Marsh Girl; now scientific institutions recognize her as the Marsh Expert.”

— Delia Owens

143. “Tate couldn’t stop staring. She must be thirteen or fourteen, he thought. But even at that age, she had the most striking face he’d ever seen. Here large eyes nearly black, her nose slender over shapely lips, painted her in an exotic light. She was tall, thin, giving her a fragile, lithesome look as though molded wild by the wind. Yet young, strapping muscles showed through with quiet power.”

— Delia Owens

144. “Slowly, she unraveled each word of the sentence: “‘There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.’” “Oh,” she said. “Oh.” “You can read, Kya. There will never be a time again when you can’t read.” “It ain’t just that.” She spoke almost in a whisper. “I wadn’t aware that words could hold so much. I didn’t know a sentence could be so full.” He smiled. “That’s a very good sentence. Not all words hold that much.”

— Delia Owens

145. “As they moved closer, she flattened herself against the oak and peered around. Five girls and four boys, a bit older than she, maybe twelve. She recognized Chase Andrews throwing.”

— Delia Owens

146. “I don’t know how to do life without grits.”

— Delia Owens

147. “All along You thought The fiery current Of your lover’s breast Pulled you to the deep. But it was my heart-tide Releasing you To float adrift With seaweed.”

— Delia Owens

148. “Birds sing mostly at dawn because the cool, moist air of morning carries their songs and their meanings much farther.”

— Delia Owens

149. “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.”

— Delia Owens

150. “Illogical behavior to fill an emptiness would not fulfill much more. How much do you trade to defeat lonesomeness?”

— Delia Owens