Top 450 Delia Owens Quotes (2024 Update)
Page 7 of 10

301. “You can’t eat grits without salt.”

— Delia Owens

302. “What he’d learned right after DNA, isotopes, and protozoans was that he couldn’t breathe without her.”

— Delia Owens

303. “Kya watched him gimp along the path, left leg swinging to the side, then forward. Her fingers knotted. Maybe they were all going to leave her, one by one down this lane. When he reached the road and unexpectedly looked back, she threw her hand up and waved hard. A shot to keep him tethered. Pa lifted an arm in a quick, dismissive salutation. But it was something. It was more than Ma had done.”

— Delia Owens

304. “Pa still disappeared some, not coming back for several days, but not as often as before. And when he did show up, he didn’t collapse in a stupor but ate a meal and talked some. One night they played gin rummy, he guffawing when she won, and she giggling with her hands over her mouth like a regular girl.”

— Delia Owens

305. “The calmness of the boy. She’d never known anybody to speak or move so steady. So sure and easy. Just being near him, and not even that close, had eased her tightness. 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

306. “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

307. “Kya didn’t stop or they would bolt, a lesson she’d learned from watching wild turkeys: if you act like a predator, they act like prey. Just ignore them, keep going slowly.”

— Delia Owens

308. “She stared, not knowing how to see this. Would she have to go somewhere, meet people? Tate didn’t miss the questions in her eyes.”

— Delia Owens

309. “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.”

— Delia Owens

310. “If we had taken her in as one of our own – I think that is what she would be today.”

— Delia Owens

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

— Delia Owens

312. “Thought ya could use that fer yo’ feathers, bird nests, and all that other stuff ya c’lect.” “Oh,” Kya said. “Oh, thank ya.” But he was already out the porch door. She picked up the frayed knapsack, made of canvas tough enough for a lifetime and covered in small pockets and secret compartments. Heavy-duty zips. She stared out the window. He had never given her anything.”

— Delia Owens

313. “Her collections matured, categorized methodically by order, genus, and species; by age according to bone wear; by size in millimeters of feahers; or by the fragile hues of greens. The science and art entwined in each other’s strengths; the colors, the light, the species, the life; weaving a masterpiece of knowledge and beauty that filled every corner of her shack. Her world, She grew with them – the trunk of the vine – alone, but holding all the wonders together.”

— Delia Owens

314. “She knew Pa was the reason they all left; what she wondered was why no one took her with them. She’d thought of leaving too, but had nowhere to go and no bus money.”

— Delia Owens

315. “Finally, after a lifetime, she admitted it was the chance of seeing Tate, the hope of rounding a creek bend and watching him through reeds, that had pulled her into the marsh every day of her life since she was seven. She knew his favorite lagoons and paths through difficult quagmires; always following him at a safe distance.”

— Delia Owens

316. “As they crowded around her, she felt their featers brushing her arms and thighs, and threw her head back, smiling with them. Even as tears streamed her cheeks.”

— Delia Owens

317. “Sloppy and confused waves jerked the bow sideways, pulling against the tiller. As always, the ocean seemed angrier than the marsh. Deeper, it had more to say.”

— Delia Owens

318. “It didn’t fit that anyone who liked birds would be mean.”

— Delia Owens

319. “Pa pointed to a crumpled dollar and loose coins on the kitchen table. “This here’ll get ya food fer the week. Thar ain’t no such thang as handouts,” he said. “Ever’thang cost sump’m, and fer the money ya gotta keep the house up, stove wood c’lected, and warsh the laundree.”

— Delia Owens

320. “He offered up his famous specialty – grilled flounder stuffed with shrimp served on pimento-cheese grits – only a few times a year.”

— Delia Owens

321. “Nodding at everyone, there not being one person they didn’t know, they sat at a corner table. Both ordered the special: chicken-fried steak, mash and gravy, turnips, and coleslaw. Biscuits. Pecan pie with ice cream. At the next table, a family of four joined hands and lowered their heads as the father said a blessing out loud. At “Amen” they kissed the air, squeezed hands, and passed the cornbread.”

— Delia Owens

322. “Mostly she looked for the fishing boy.”

— Delia Owens

323. “Tucked in the P section was a pelican feather, forget-me-not blossoms pressed between two pages of the Fs, a dried mushroom under M. So many treasures were stashed among the pages, the book would not completely close.”

— Delia Owens

324. “Miss Kya. I didn’t jus’ fall off the turnip truck.”

— Delia Owens

325. “Kya was bonded to her planet and its life in a way few people are. Rooted solid in this earth. Born of this mother.”

— Delia Owens

326. “She held it against her heart. Where else would one need a compass more than in this place?”

— Delia Owens

327. “She waited the next day. Each hour warmed until noon, blistered after midday, throbbed past sunset. Later, the moon threw hope across the water, but that died, too. Another sunrise, another white-hot noon. Sunset again. All hope gone to neutral.”

— Delia Owens

328. “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

329. “Listless, she wondered what she had done to send everyone away.”

— Delia Owens

330. “Kya turned quickly to speed away but, against a strong pull, turned back and searched for him. She knew that no part of this yearning made sense. Illogical behavior to fill an emptiness would not fulfill much more. How much do you trade to defeat lonesomeness?”

— Delia Owens

331. “Downstream a herd of five female deer ignored her and wandered along the water’s edge nibbling leaves. If only she could join in, belong to them. Kya knew it wasn’t so much that the herd would be incomplete without one of its deer, but that each deer would be incomplete without her herd. p272.”

— Delia Owens

332. “Hiya, Miss Kya. Got somebody here for ya to meet. This here’s ma wife, Mabel.”

— Delia Owens

333. “The shack stood silent against the early stir of blackbird wings, as an earnest winter fog formed along the ground, bunching up against the walls like large wisps of cotton.”

— Delia Owens

334. “Uncertainty lingered, but the more she thought about it, the less likely it seemed the boy meant harm. It didn’t fit that anyone who liked birds would be mean.”

— Delia Owens

335. “Hello, dear, I’m Mrs. Culpepper. You’re all grown up and ready to go to school, aren’t ya?”

— Delia Owens

336. “The same game of physics playing on a different field of biology.”

— Delia Owens

337. “Chase right on the deck of his fancy ski boat. There’s.”

— Delia Owens

338. “A lone tear trailed down Mrs. Culpepper’s cheek, and then a shadow smile for the little swamp truant escaping again.”

— Delia Owens

339. “Drugged by despair and heat, she tossed in clothes and sheets damp from sweat, her skin sticky. She sent her toes on missions to scout for cool spots between the sheets, but they found none.”

— Delia Owens

340. “Boys, not men. She sat straight up. There was no back door.”

— Delia Owens

341. “But now, with permission finally granted, an urgency gripped him and he seemed to bypass her needs and push his way. She cried out against a sharp tearing, thinking something was wrong.”

— Delia Owens

342. “As always, the ocean seemed angrier than the marsh. Deeper, it had more to say.”

— Delia Owens

343. “Don’t go on 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.”

— Delia Owens

344. “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.”

— Delia Owens

345. “Finally, she bent over and, heaving, fell to her knees. Cussing worn-out words. As long as she ranted, sobs couldn’t surface. But nothing could stop the burning shame and sharp sadness. A simple hope of being with someone, of actually being wanted, of being touched, had drawn her in. But these hurried groping hands were only a taking, not a sharing or giving.”

— Delia Owens

346. “Just before he stepped into the trees, she finally turned and watched him walk away. “This little piggy stayed home,” she said to the waves.”

— Delia Owens

347. “Looks like it’ll be ’bout eight hundr’d dollars total – put the land free and clear.” Kya walked out of the courthouse with a full deed in her name for three hundred ten acres of lush lagoons, sparkling marsh, oak forests, and a long private beach on the North Carolina coastline.”

— Delia Owens

348. “Even male birds woo the females for a while, flashing brilliant feathers, building bowers, staging magnificent dances and love songs. Yes, Chase had laid out a banquet, but she was worth more than fried chicken. And “Dixie” didn’t count as a love song.”

— Delia Owens

349. “Months turned into a year.”

— Delia Owens

350. “But just as her collection grew, so did her loneliness.”

— Delia Owens