Where The Crawdads Sing Quotes
"The morning burned so August-hot, the marsh’s moist breath hung the oaks and pines with fog."
"Layers of life—squiggly sand crabs, mud-waddling crayfish, waterfowl, fish, shrimp, oysters, fatted deer, and plump geese—were piled on the land or in the water."
"The marsh was not a swamp but a space of light, where grass grows in water, and water flows into the sky."
"Autumn leaves don’t fall, they fly. They take their time and wander on this their only chance to soar."
"There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot."
"She knew the years of loneliness had changed her into a marsh girl, unreachable, natural as an egret."
"To live with the stars and the animals, communicate with them, and be part of the breath and pulse of the wild."
"Sometimes she heard night-sounds she didn’t know or jumped from lightning too close, but whenever she stumbled, it was the land that caught her."
"And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar; And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said, ‘Please close that door."
"Just can’t take it in. Chase dead. He was the best quarterback this town ever saw. This is plumb outta kilter."
"If you act like a predator, they act like prey. Just ignore them, keep going slow."
"Her face was grim as she approached, but he smiled at her, warm and open, and touched the brim of his hat like a gentleman greeting a fine lady in a gown and bonnet."
"The view a chick gets, she reckoned, when it finally breaks its shell."
"A single drop, here then there, shook a leaf like the flick of a cat’s ear."
"She ran to the kitchen and laid out a goulash of boiled mustard greens, backbone, and grits."
"Her fingers became long feathers, splayed against the sky, gathering the wind beneath her."
"Then they had blackberry cobbler with ice cream for dessert. So full, Kya thought she might get sick, but figured it’d be worth it."
"Barkley Cove served its religion hard-boiled and deep-fried."
"Kya watched the mother run her fingers through the curls; didn’t miss how long they held each other’s eyes."
"Of course, she remembered the hot pain slicing her bare bottom, but curiously, she recalled the jeans pooled around her skinny ankles in more vivid detail."
"Kya could still see the full, red lips as Ma sang to the radio, and hear her words, 'Now listen close to Mr. Orson Welles; he speaks proper like a gentleman. Don’t ever say ain’t, it isn’t even a word.'"
"Sitting on the front steps, she thought about it."
"She’d have to pretend, even to Jumpin’, that Pa was still around."
"Not too grown-up for a Sugar Daddy Jumpin’ had dropped inside."
"Ma’s sundress fit snugly across her breasts and fell just below her knees; she reckoned she had caught up, and then some."
"But here was someone who came on his own, leaving gifts for her in the forest."
"Loneliness had become a natural appendage to Kya, like an arm. Now it grew roots inside her and pressed against her chest."
"The sun, still shy and submissive to winter, peeped in now and then between days of mean wind and bitter rain."
"The day warmed, and the sky shone as if polished."
"Kya put her hands over her mouth and giggled."
"Love. There was nothing about the word she understood."
"You learn a lot more about something when it’s not in a jar."
"Biology sees right and wrong as the same color in different light."
"All I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying."
"Love must be free to wander, To land upon its chosen shore And breathe."
"Her world. She grew with them—the trunk of the vine—alone, but holding all the wonders together."
"But loneliness became larger than she could hold."
"Her eyes shifted listlessly, and though she listened for Tate’s boat, she was no longer coiled."
"She never collected lightning bugs in bottles; you learn a lot more about something when it’s not in a jar."
"A clutch of women’s the most tender, most tough place on Earth."
"Her body watched Chase Andrews, not her heart."
"Life had made her an expert at mashing feelings into a storable size."
"No running water, no electricity, no bathroom. Just the moon pulling herself naked from the waters."
"A curiosity as well as desire stirred in him."
"It wasn’t loose and was tied in a knot. I just don’t see how it could’ve flung off."
"Now she had to speak out because she just knew that wench had something to do with his death."
"People mess up. Maybe she was shocked and furious that he still wore the necklace, and after committing murder, it didn’t seem like a big deal to snatch it off his neck."
"She couldn’t have him, so maybe she killed him and took the necklace from his neck."
"Seems like there’s something in every murder case that doesn’t make sense."
"Just knowing she would see him again soon, be with someone, lifted her to a new place."
"Giving away another piece of herself just to have someone else."
"Kya’s breath was shallow, her mind disbelieving and sorting details all at the same time."
"Why should the injured, the still bleeding, bear the onus of forgiveness?"
"Kya spent Christmas alone with the gulls, as she had every year since Ma left."
"She wanted him, all of him, and her body pushed against his."
"Day drained away and night settled heavily, the village lights dancing here and there on the distant shore. Stars twinkling above their world of sea and sky."
"Like most people, Chase knew the marsh as a thing to be used, to boat and fish, or drain for farming, so Kya’s knowledge of its critters, currents, and cattails intrigued him."
"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."
"The only light emitted from various flashing beer signs, giving off an amber glow, like campfires licking whiskered faces."
"Together, we’ll sort out if it’s important or not."
"The notes floated with the fog, dissipating into the darker reaches of the lowland forests, and seemed somehow to be absorbed and memorized by the marsh."
"Nature seemed the only stone that would not slip midstream."
"The surge produces cruel backcurrents, fisted eddies, and reverse circulations that swirl with coastal riptides, birthing one of the nastiest snake pits of the planet’s seas."
"Perhaps love is best left as a fallow field."
"I have to do life alone. But I knew this. I’ve known a long time that people don’t stay."
"The elements had created a brief and shifting smile of sand, angled just so."
"She touched the pages and remembered each shell and the story of finding it, where it lay on the beach, the season, the sunrise. A family album."
"If anyone understood loneliness, the moon would."
"Fear from knowing she would be alone again. Probably always. A life sentence."
"I’ve been waiting all these years for her to walk down the lane."
"Anyone looking at these portraits would think they portrayed the happiest of families, living on a seashore, playing in sunshine."
"I forgive Ma for leaving. But I don’t understand why she didn’t come back—why she abandoned me."
"Some parts of us will always be what we were, what we had to be to survive—way back yonder."
"In nature—out yonder where the crawdads sing—these ruthless-seeming behaviors actually increase the mother’s number of young over her lifetime."
"We see brilliant colors, and never learn the sun has dropped beneath the earth by the time we see the burn."
"Even with Pa ranting and raving, Tate picked you up and handed you to Ma."
"No one has to tell me how it changes a person. I have lived it. I am isolation."
"Such an astonishing thing: a family she could find. A number she could call and he would answer."
"The connections... Look at us; you and I have each other now."
"Without them, we wouldn’t be here. We still store those instincts in our genes."
"She’d brought this on herself. Consorting unchaperoned. A natural wanting had led her unmarried to a cheap motel, but still unsatisfied."
"I will never live like that—a life wondering when and where the next fist will fall."
"Female fireflies draw in strange males with dishonest signals and eat them; mantis females devour their own mates. Female insects, Kya thought, know how to deal with their lovers."
"Dreams of escape—even through death—always lift toward the light."
"Leaning on someone leaves you on the ground."
"I don’t fit with other people. I cannot be part of your world."
"The sweeping up the heart, And putting Love away We shall not want to use again Until Eternity."
"It’d be the same for me, and you know it. Please promise me you won’t tell anybody."
"The absence of footprints does not prove there was a crime."
"I must repeat, these grates are very dangerous and if action is not taken, a serious injury or even death will occur."
"Never underrate the heart, capable of deeds the mind cannot conceive."
"Dominance hierarchies enhance stability in natural populations, and some less natural."
"We called her the Marsh Girl... did we exclude Miss Clark because she was different, or was she different because we excluded her?"
"If we had fed, clothed, and loved her, invited her into our churches and homes, we wouldn’t be prejudiced against her."
"Tutored by millions of minutes alone, Kya thought she knew lonely."
"In the silence, she understood the scale of the prejudices against her."
"Most of what she knew, she'd learned from the wild. Nature had nurtured, tutored, and protected her when no one else would."
"As dawn eased in, he came around a bend and saw her drifting in her boat in a lagoon surrounded by sycamores touching the sky."
"For Kya, it was enough to be part of this natural sequence as sure as the tides."
"She was bonded to her planet and its life in a way few people are. Rooted solid in this earth. Born of this mother."