Top 450 Delia Owens Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “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

152. “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

153. “The bits and bones of a life. The stones of her stream.”

— Delia Owens

154. “Part of her longed to touch his hand, a strange wanting, but her fingers wouldn’t do it. Instead she memorized the bluish veins on the inside of his wrist, as intricate as those sketched on the wings of wasps.”

— Delia Owens

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

— Delia Owens

156. “Months passed into another year. Then another.”

— Delia Owens

157. “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

158. “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

159. “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

160. “For miles To the other edge, And how much sky Is in one breath When time slides backward From the sand.”

— Delia Owens

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

— Delia Owens

162. “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

163. “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

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

— Delia Owens

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

— Delia Owens

166. “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

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

— Delia Owens

168. “Unworthy boys make a lot of noise.”

— Delia Owens

169. “There are sounds, of course, but compared to the marsh, the swamp is quiet because decomposition is cellular work.”

— Delia Owens

170. “Kya watched others. The females got what they wanted – first a mate, then a meal – just by changing their signals. Kya knew judgment had no place here. Evil was not in play, just life pulsing on, even at the expense of some of the players. Biology sees right and wrong as the same color in different light.”

— Delia Owens

171. “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.”

— Delia Owens

172. “Ma was isolated and alone. Under those circumstances people behave differently.”

— Delia Owens

173. “I made a necklace with the shell you found. You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to.”

— Delia Owens

174. “For the first time since Ma and Jodie left, she breathed without pain; felt something other than the hurt. She needed this boat and that boy.”

— Delia Owens

175. “But when he reached the lagoon, he stopped under the deep canopy and watched hundreds of fireflies beckoning far into the dark reaches of the marsh. Way out yonder, where the crawdads sing.”

— Delia Owens

176. “Someone knew her name. She was taken aback. Felt anchored to something; released from something else.”

— Delia Owens

177. “Some parts of us will always be what we were, what we had to be to survive...”

— Delia Owens

178. “Hello, Mister Jake. How ya doin’?” “Well, Ah woke up on the right side of dirt,” Pa answered. Jumpin’ laughed as if he’d never heard the worn-out phrase.”

— Delia Owens

179. “The lonely became larger than she could hold. She wished for someone’s voice, presence, touch, but wished more to protect her heart.”

— Delia Owens

180. “In a time I don’t remember – I already loved you.”

— Delia Owens

181. “The sky in a frumpy sweater of gray clouds.”

— Delia Owens

182. “Kya laid her hand upon the breathing, wet earth, and the marsh became her mother.”

— Delia Owens

183. “She hesitated; touching someone meant giving part of herself away, a piece she never got back.”

— Delia Owens

184. “Truths everyone should know, yet somehow, even though they lay exposed all around, seemed to lie in secret like the seeds.”

— Delia Owens

185. “Don’t go thinking poetry’s just for sissies. There’s mushy love poems, for sure, but there’s also funny ones, lots about nature, war even. Whole point of it – they make ya feel something.” His dad had told him many times that the definition of a real man is one who cries without shame, reads poetry with his heart, feels opera in his soul, and does what’s necessary to defend a woman.”

— Delia Owens

186. “The next week she bought backbones – marked with a red tag – and boiled them with grits and collard greens in a mush that tasted fine.”

— Delia Owens

187. “Kya stood and walked into the night, into the creamy light of a three-quarter moon. The marsh’s soft air fell silklike around her shoulders. The moonlight chose an unexpected path through the pines, laying shadows about in rhymes. She strolled like a sleepwalker as the moon pulled herself naked from the waters and climbed limb by limb through the oaks.”

— Delia Owens

188. “The elements had created a brief and shifting smile of sand, angled just so. The next tide, the next current would design another sandbar, and another, but never this one. Not the one who caught her. The one who told her a thing or two.”

— Delia Owens

189. “Never said I could be completely sure it was her. But I’m pretty – ” “That will be all, Mr. Miller. Thank you.” Judge Sims asked, “Redirect, Eric?” From his seat, Eric asked, “Hal, you testified that.”

— Delia Owens

190. “Now she looked into the eyes of the stranger standing on her porch and said, “Jodie.”

— Delia Owens

191. “While she pleaded for him not to cut through her name, he sliced enormous pieces of cake and plopped them on paper plates. Staring into each other’s eyes, they broke off bites and stuffed them in their mouths. Smacking loudly. Licking fingers. Laughing through icing-smeared grins. Eating cake the way it should be eaten, the way everybody wants to eat it.”

— Delia Owens

192. “When they finally settled at the table, she pulled her chair close to his, their arms and elbows nearly touching. Just to feel him near.”

— Delia Owens

193. “If somebody took the necklace off Chase at the tower, that would at least put them at the scene, and I can see somebody from the marsh being involved in this thing. They got their own laws. But I just don’t know if a woman could’ve pushed a big guy like Chase through that hole.”

— Delia Owens

194. “Most of what she knew, she’d learned from the wild. Nature had nurtured, tutored, and protected her when no one else would.”

— Delia Owens

195. “Just like their whiskey, the marsh dwellers bootlegged their own laws – not like those burned onto stone tablets or inscribed on documents, but deeper ones, stamped in their genes.”

— Delia Owens

196. “Autumn was coming. the evergreens might not have noticed, but the Sycamores did: they waved thousands of yellow leaves...”

— Delia Owens

197. “The war with Germany was an equalizer. Boiled down to the same uniform-hue as everyone else, he could hide his shame, once again play proud.”

— Delia Owens

198. “He didn’t mention how he felt sorry for her being alone, that he knew how the kids had treated her for years;.”

— Delia Owens

199. “Female insects, Kya thought, know how to deal with their lovers.”

— Delia Owens

200. “He turned to her, still standing in the doorway. “Kya, these are wonderful, beautifully detailed. You could publish these. This could be a book – lots of books.”

— Delia Owens