Top 450 Delia Owens Quotes (2026 Update)
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201. “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

202. “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

203. “Even Jodie had said she should give Tate another chance. But every time she thought of him or saw him, her heart jumped from the old love to the pain of abandonment. She wished it would settle on one side or the other.”

— Delia Owens

204. “For a while she was so stiff she couldn’t swallow, but on cue, the familiar songs of tree frogs and katydids filled the night. More comforting than three blind mice with a carving knife. The darkness held an odor of sweetness, the earthy breath of frogs and salamanders who’d made it through one more stinky-hot day. The marsh snuggled in closer with a low fog, and she slept.”

— Delia Owens

205. “She wished for someone’s voice, presence, touch, but wished more to protect her heart.”

— Delia Owens

206. “Not waiting for the sounds of someone was a release. And a strength.”

— Delia Owens

207. “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

208. “Sometimes she heard night-sounds she didn’t know or jumped from lightning too close, but whenever she stumbled, it was the land who caught her. Until at last, at some unclaimed moment, the heart-pain seeped away like water into sand. Still there, but deep. Kya laid her hand upon the breathing, wet earth, and the marsh became her mother.”

— Delia Owens

209. “My mother and little sister died in a car wreck over in Asheville. My sister’s name was Carianne.”

— Delia Owens

210. “I’m so sorry. I am, but, Kya, it’s not just guys who are unfaithful. I’ve been duped, dropped, run over a few times myself. Let’s face it, a lot of times love doesn’t work out. Yet even when it fails, it connects you to others and, in the end, that is all you have, the connections. Look at us; you and I have each other now, and just think, if I have kids and you have kids, well, that’s a whole new string of connections. And on it goes. Kya, if you love Tate, take a chance.”

— Delia Owens

211. “Tate said long words were simply little ones strung together – so she wasn’t afraid of them, went straight to learning Pleistocene along with sat.”

— Delia Owens

212. “The only light emitted from various flashing beer signs, giving off an amber glow, like campfires licking whiskered faces.”

— Delia Owens

213. “Oh, that’s a long boring story.”

— Delia Owens

214. “Out here, in the real remote, she was free to wander, collect at will, read the words, read the wild. Not waiting for the sounds of someone was a release. And a strength.”

— Delia Owens

215. “A Visit from Patti Love 1969.”

— Delia Owens

216. “We were the victims, not the guilty.” He smiled. “Thank you, Kya.”

— Delia Owens

217. “At the chirp of a chipmunk she whirled around, listened keenly to the caws of crows – a language before words were, when communication was simple and clear.”

— Delia Owens

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

— Delia Owens

219. “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

220. “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

221. “With the mussel money she bought matches, a candle, and grits. Kerosene and soap would have to wait for another croker full. It took all her might not to buy a Sugar Daddy instead of the candle.”

— Delia Owens

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

— Delia Owens

223. “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

224. “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

225. “As before, the shack stood unpainted on the outside, the weathered pine boards and tin roof rich in gray and rust colors, brushed by Spanish moss from the overhanging oak. Less rickety, but still woven into the weft of the marsh. Kya continued sleeping on the porch, except in the coldest of winter. But now she had a bed.”

— Delia Owens

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

— Delia Owens

227. “Thought ya could use that fer yo’ feathers, bird nests, and all that other stuff ya c’lect.”

— Delia Owens

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

— Delia Owens

229. “It is not a morality, but simple math. Among themselves, doves fight as often as hawks.”

— Delia Owens

230. “The sun, still shy and submissive to winter, peeped in now and then between days of mean wind and bitter rain. Then one afternoon, just like that, spring elbowed her way in for good. The day warmed, and the sky shone as if polished.”

— Delia Owens

231. “The unworthy ones strut about, pulling you in with falsehoods. Which is probably why Ma fell for a man like Pa.”

— Delia Owens

232. “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

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

— Delia Owens

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

— Delia Owens

235. “Female fireflies draw in strange males with dishonest signals and eat them; mantis females devour their own mates.”

— Delia Owens

236. “Aldo Leopold taught her that floodplains are living extensions of the rivers, which will claim them back any time they choose. Anyone living on a floodplain is just waiting in the river’s wings.”

— Delia Owens

237. “Well, we better hide way out there where the crawdads sing.”

— Delia Owens

238. “And just at that second, the wind picked up, and thousands upon thousands of yellow sycamore leaves broke from their life support and streamed across the sky.”

— Delia Owens

239. “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

240. “Life had made her an expert at mashing feelings into a storable size.”

— Delia Owens

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

— Delia Owens

242. “Kya, I want you more than anything. I want you forever. But you’re too young. You’re only fifteen.”

— Delia Owens

243. “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

244. “Ever so carefully he opened the old cigar box, the one where all the collecting began. The box still smelled of sweet tobacco and little girl. Among a few birds’ feathers, insects’ wings, and seeds was the small jar with the ashes from her ma’s letter, and a bottle of Revlon fingernail polish, Barely Pink. The bits and bones of a life. The stones of her stream.”

— Delia Owens

245. “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

246. “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

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

— Delia Owens

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

— Delia Owens

249. “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

250. “The Barkley Cove graveyard trailed off under tunnels of dark oaks. Spanish moss hung in long curtains, creating cavelike sanctuaries for old tombstones – the remains of a family here, a loner there, in no order at all. Fingers of gnarled roots had torn and twisted gravestones into hunched and nameless forms. Markers of death all weathered into nubbins by elements of life. In the distance, the sea and sky sang too bright for this serious ground.”

— Delia Owens