Top 450 Delia Owens Quotes (2026 Update)
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401. “And yet here was an extra spark plug, to be set aside until needed. A surplus. Her heart filled up.”

— Delia Owens

402. “Happy birthday, Kya,” he said. “You’re fifteen.”

— Delia Owens

403. “Finally she said, “What do you want now, Tate?” “If only you could, some way, forgive me.” He breathed in and waited.”

— Delia Owens

404. “From the Marsh Girl Tate read the words, then turned away, staring.”

— Delia Owens

405. “No fancy dining room could compare to that, and the coon balls offered more spice and flare than almond-crusted trout.”

— Delia Owens

406. “She knew it wasn’t Chase she mourned, but a.”

— Delia Owens

407. “Joe held up a red wool hat. “Where’d you find that?” “Right here, hangin’ on this row of hooks with these coats, other hats, and stuff.”

— Delia Owens

408. “Ya need some girlfriends, hon, ’cause they’re furever. Without a vow. A clutch of women’s the most tender, most tough place on Earth.”

— Delia Owens

409. “She knew it wasn’t Chase she mourned, but a life defined by rejections. As the sky and clouds struggled overhead, she said out loud, “I have to do life alone. But I knew this. I’ve known a long time that people don’t stay.”

— Delia Owens

410. “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

411. “Red Fibers 1969.”

— Delia Owens

412. “They had abandoned her to survive and defend herself. So here she was, by herself.”

— Delia Owens

413. “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

414. “He’d convinced Maria that living in a cabin his father had built as a fishing retreat on the coast of North Carolina would be a new start.”

— Delia Owens

415. “The owner, an old black man, sprang up from his chair to help them – the reason everybody called him Jumpin’.”

— Delia Owens

416. “Her most poignant memories were unknown dates of family members disappearing down the lane.”

— Delia Owens

417. “But in fact, the restaurant, with all its glitter, wasn’t nearly as grand as her favorite picnic. When she was fifteen, Tate had boated to her shack one dawn, and, after he’d wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, they cruised inland through a maze of waterways to a forest she’d never seen. They hiked a mile to the edge of a waterlogged meadow where fresh grass sprouted through mud, and there he laid the blanket under ferns as large as umbrellas.”

— Delia Owens

418. “Unfortunately gravity holds no sway on human thought.”

— Delia Owens

419. “Her heart beat wildly. Of all the ragged loves she’d known from wayward family, none had felt like this.”

— Delia Owens

420. “Chase’s blue eyes were playful; he smiled easily.”

— Delia Owens

421. “They sat there like that, quietly. Not remembering.”

— Delia Owens

422. “Faces change with life’s toll, but eyes remain a window to what was, and she could see him there. “Jodie, I’m so.”

— Delia Owens

423. “Yes, Chase had laid out a banquet, but she was worth more than fried chicken.”

— Delia Owens

424. “You all listen now, this is a real lesson in life. Yes, we got stuck, but what’d we girls do? We made it fun, we laughed. That’s what sisters and girlfriends are all about. Sticking together even in the mud, ’specially in mud.”

— Delia Owens

425. “But this time there was laughter and love.”

— Delia Owens

426. “Autumn was coming; the evergreens might not have noticed, but the sycamores did.”

— Delia Owens

427. “I have almost no recollection of the few hours after we left the plateau. I think I was concentrating so hard on the immediate that my mind couldn’t afford space for anything else. Maybe to have a memory, you need time for reflection, however brief, just to let the memory find a place to settle.”

— Delia Owens

428. “Who decides the time to die?”

— Delia Owens

429. “The Game 1960 The next noon, hands on her cheeks, Kya approached the stump slowly, almost in prayer. But no feather on the stump. Her lips pinched. “A’ course. I gotta leave something for him.”

— Delia Owens

430. “White Canoe 1960.”

— Delia Owens

431. “Croker Sacks Full 1956 In the winter of 1956, when Kya was ten, Pa.”

— Delia Owens

432. “You’re worse than he is. He might not be perfect, but you’re worse by a long shot.”

— Delia Owens

433. “I brought them in case you were still here. Rosemary sent these to me. She said that for years, day and night, Ma painted us.”

— Delia Owens

434. “Faces change with life’s toll, but eyes remain a window to what was...”

— Delia Owens

435. “Not knowing how to count the exact amount, she laid down the whole dollar.”

— Delia Owens

436. “Oh, by the way,” Chase said. “I have to drive over to Asheville in a few days to buy goods for the.”

— Delia Owens

437. “The sheriff was silent a few seconds. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m getting old and soft at the grand ol’ age of fifty-one. But running down a woman with hounds for questioning doesn’t seem right. It’s fine for escaped convicts, people already convicted of some crime. But, like everybody else, she’s innocent until proven guilty, and I can’t see setting hounds on a female suspect. Maybe as a last resort, but not yet.”

— Delia Owens

438. “For months Ma was mute, didn’t speak one word. She stayed in her old room in her parents’ home, barely eating. Of course, they had doctors come out, but no one could help her. Ma’s father contacted the sheriff in Barkley Cove to ask if Ma’s children were all right, but his office said they didn’t even try to keep track of the marsh people.”

— Delia Owens

439. “Why would Chase open this one in the.”

— Delia Owens

440. “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

441. “But the process of being killed by another’s hand, planned out and set to schedule, was so unthinkable it stopped her breath.”

— Delia Owens

442. “Pennies and Grits 1956.”

— Delia Owens

443. “But, being only seven and a girl, she’d never taken the boat out by herself.”

— Delia Owens

444. “Her carefully labeled samples, more than fifty years’ worth, was the longest-running, most complete collection of its kind. She had requested that it be donated to Archbald Lab, and someday he would do so, but parting with it now was unthinkable.”

— Delia Owens

445. “She was better off to leave ’em, heal herself up, then whelp more when she could raise ’em good.”

— Delia Owens

446. “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

447. “Slowly, she unraveled each word of the sentence: “’There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.”

— Delia Owens

448. “Yeah, we all got magnolia mouth, being from the North Carolina sticks, but we have to try.”

— Delia Owens

449. “It’s a two-day job, so we’ll have to stay overnight.”

— Delia Owens

450. “Talvez alguns sonhos devessem simplesmente passar.”

— Delia Owens