Top 450 Delia Owens Quotes (2026 Update)
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351. “But this was too abrupt – picnic, then mate the.”

— Delia Owens

352. “Now, Miss Kya, this ain’t nothin’ to be ‘shamed of. It ain’t no curse, like folks say; this here’s the startin’ of all life, and only a woman can do it.”

— Delia Owens

353. “Most people don’t have to be acquitted of murder to be accepted.”

— Delia Owens

354. “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

355. “There’s a mama blue jay lifting from a branch; I’d fly too, if I had a chance.”

— Delia Owens

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

— Delia Owens

357. “Months passed, winter easing gently into place, as southern winters do.”

— Delia Owens

358. “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

359. “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

360. “Her pockets yielded only ordinary feathers, shells, and seedpods, so she hurried back to the shack and stood in front of her feather-wall, window-shopping. The most graceful were the tail feathers from a tundra swan.”

— Delia Owens

361. “When the soldiers tumbled back into the trench, dragging the sergeant, they assumed Jake had been hit while helping the others rescue their comrade. He was declared a hero. No one would ever know. Except Jake.”

— Delia Owens

362. “Yet even when it fails, it connects you to others and, in the end, that is all you have, the connections.”

— Delia Owens

363. “Ever since Barkley Cove had been settled in 1751, no lawman extended his jurisdiction beyond the saw grass. In the 1940s and ’50s, a few sheriffs set hounds on some mainland convicts who’d escaped into the marsh, and the office still kept dogs just in case. But Jackson mostly ignored crimes committed in the swamp. Why interrupt rats killing rats?”

— Delia Owens

364. “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

365. “Someone knew her name. She was taken aback.”

— Delia Owens

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

— Delia Owens

367. “After Ma left, over the next few weeks, Kya’s oldest brother and two sisters drifted away too, as if by example. They had endured Pa’s red-faced rages, which started as shouts, then escalated into fist-slugs, or backhanded punches, until one by one, they disappeared.”

— Delia Owens

368. “Her pocket brought a tail feather from an.”

— Delia Owens

369. “Kya leaned over gently, as if to kiss a baby. The microscope’s light reflected in her dark pupils, and she drew in a breath as a Mardi Gras of costumed players pirouetted and careened into view. Unimaginable headdresses adorned astonishing bodies so eager for more life, they frolicked as though caught in a circus tent, not a single bead of water.”

— Delia Owens

370. “Kya remembered, those many years ago, Ma warning her older sisters about young men who overrevved their rusted-out pickups or drove jalopies around with radios blaring. “Unworthy boys make a lot of noise,” Ma had said. She read a consolation for females. Nature is audacious enough to ensure that the males who send out dishonest signals or go from one female to the next almost always end up alone.”

— Delia Owens

371. “They sipped until the sun, as golden as syrupy as the bourbon, slipped into the sea.”

— Delia Owens

372. “Kya turned the page to continue the story, and there loomed a large picture of Chase and a girl above an engagement announcement: Andrews-Stone.”

— Delia Owens

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

— Delia Owens

374. “She kept on buying gas and supplies from him but never accepted a handout from them again. And each time she came to his wharf, she saw her book propped up in the tiny window for all to see. As a father would have shown it.”

— Delia Owens

375. “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

376. “For a scavenger, patience is the key to the pantry.”

— Delia Owens

377. “She walked to the pool twice a day for a week, living on saltines and Crisco, and Pa never came home the whole time. By the eighth day she could circle her foot without stiffness and the pain had retreated to the surface. She danced a little jig, favoring her foot, squealing, “I did it, I did it!” The next morning, she headed for the beach to find more pirates. “First thing I’m gonna do is boss my crew to pick up all them nails.”

— Delia Owens

378. “Months turned into a year.”

— Delia Owens

379. “He couldn’t come close to sorting it out himself, but he’d never been hit by a stronger wave. A power of emotions as painful as pleasurable.”

— Delia Owens

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

— Delia Owens

381. “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

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

— Delia Owens

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

— Delia Owens

384. “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

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

— Delia Owens

386. “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. Autumn leaves don’t fall; they fly. They take their time and wander on this, their only chance to soar.”

— Delia Owens

387. “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

388. “Without another word, he got in his boat and motored across the lagoon. Just before entering the thick brambles of the channel, he turned and waved. She lifted her hand high above her head, and then touched it to her heart.”

— Delia Owens

389. “One at a time, then ten at a time, then hundreds of geese landed only yards from where Kya and Tate had sat under the ferns. The sky emptied as the wet meadow filled until it was covered in downy snow. No fancy dining room could compare to that, and the coon balls offered more spice and flare than almond-crusted trout.”

— Delia Owens

390. “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

391. “Ma warning her older sisters about young men who overrevved their rusted-out pickups or drove jalopies around with radios blaring. “Unworthy boys make a lot of noise,” Ma had said.”

— Delia Owens

392. “In the distance, the sea and sky sang too bright for this serious ground.”

— Delia Owens

393. “She anchored him hard with her eyes. Afraid to go near him, afraid not to.”

— Delia Owens

394. “Time ensures children never know their parents young.”

— Delia Owens

395. “Breathing hard, he stared at his decision hiding there in cord grass: Kya or everything else.”

— Delia Owens

396. “Kya was the youngest of five, the others much older, though later she couldn’t recall their ages.”

— Delia Owens

397. “Now at last Kya could label all her precious specimens. She took each feather, insect, shell, or.”

— Delia Owens

398. “But in her twenty-second year, more than a year after Chase and Pearl announced their engagement, she walked the sandy lane, blistering with heat, to the mailbox every day and looked inside. Finally one morning, she found a bulky manila envelope and slid the contents – an advance copy of The Sea Shells of the Eastern Seaboard, by Catherine Danielle Clark – into her hands. She breathed in, no one to show it to.”

— Delia Owens

399. “Kya wondered who started using the word cell instead of cage.”

— Delia Owens

400. “And later, just as she forgot their ages, she couldn’t remember their real names, only that they were called Missy, Murph, and Mandy.”

— Delia Owens