Top highlights from Where the Crawdads Sing
“I wasn't aware that words could hold so much. I didn't know a sentence could be so full.”
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“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.”
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“Autumn leaves don't fall, they fly. They take their time and wander on this their only chance to soar.”
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“Kya laid her hand upon the breathing, wet earth, and the marsh became her mother.”
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“Needing people ended in hurt.”
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“Most of what she knew, she'd learned from the wild. Nature had nurtured, tutored, and protected her when no one else would. If consequences resulted from her behaving differently then they too were functions of life's fundamental core. Tate's devotion eventually convinced her that human love is more than the bizarre mating competitions of the marsh creatures. But life also taught her than ancient genes for survival still persist in undesirable forms among the twists and turns of man's genetic code. For Kya it was enough to be part of this natural sequence as sure as the tides. Kya was bonded to her planet and its life in a way few people are. Rooted solid in this earth. Born of this mother.”
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Suddenly Kya sat up and paid attention: one of the females had changed her code. First she flashed the proper sequence of dashes and dots, attracting a male of her species, and they mated. Then she flickered a different signal, and a male of a different species flew to her. Reading her message, the second male was convinced he'd found a willing female of his own kind and hovered above her to mate. But suddenly the female firefly reached up, grabbed him with her mouth, and ate him, chewing all six legs and both wings.
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Kya watched others. The females all got what they wanted – first a mate, then a meal – just by changing their signals.
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Kya knew judgment had no place here. Evil was not in play, just life pulsing on, even at the expense of some of the players. Biology sees right and wrong as the same color in different light.”
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“I wadn’t aware that words could hold so much. I didn’t know a sentence could be so full.”
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“Go as far as you can—way out yonder where the crawdads sing.”
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“That’s what sisters and girlfriends are all about. Sticking together even in the mud, ’specially in mud.”
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“Loneliness has a compass of its own.”
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“She'd given love a chance; now she wanted simply to fill the empty spaces. Ease the loneliness while walling off her heart.”
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“Some parts of us will always be what we were, what we had to be to survive...”
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“Leaning on someone leaves you on the ground.”
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“Amanda Hamilton poem: “I must let go now. Let you go. Love is too often The answer for staying. Too seldom the reason For going. I drop the line And watch you drift away. “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.”
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“When cornered, desperate, or isolated, man reverts to those instincts that aim straight at survival. Quick and just. They will always be the trump cards because they are passed on more frequently from one generation to the next than the gentler genes. It is not a morality, but simple math. Among themselves, doves fight as often as hawks.”
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“Imagination grows in the lonliest of soils”
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“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.”
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“Not waiting for the sounds of someone was a release. And a strength.”
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“Biology sees right and wrong as the same color in different light.”
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“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.”
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“Love must be free to wander, To land upon its chosen shore And breathe.”
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“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.”
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“Life had made her an expert at mashing feelings into a storable size.”
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“Sunsets are never simple. Twilight is refracted and reflected But never true. Eventide is a disguise Covering tracks, Covering lies. “We don’t care That dusk deceives. We see brilliant colors, And never learn The sun has dropped Beneath the earth By the time we see the burn. “Sunsets are in disguise, Covering truths, covering lies. “A.H.”
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“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.”
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“Faces change with life’s toll, but eyes remain a window to what was, and she could see him there.”
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“Most of what she knew, she'd learned from the wild. Nature had nurtured, tutored, and protected her when no one else would.”
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“Sunsets are never simple.”
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“In nature—out yonder where the crawdads sing—these ruthless-seeming behaviors actually increase the mother’s number of young over her lifetime, and thus her genes for abandoning offspring in times of stress are passed on to the next generation. And on and on. It happens in humans, too. Some behaviors that seem harsh to us now ensured the survival of early man in whatever swamp he was in at the time. Without them, we wouldn’t be here. We still store those instincts in our genes, and they express themselves when certain circumstances prevail. Some parts of us will always be what we were, what we had to be to survive—way back yonder.”
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“She never collected lightning bugs in bottles; you learn a lot more about something when it's not in a jar.”
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“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. Scupper”
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“Perhaps love is best left as a fallow field.”
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“Speaking out loud, she recited an Amanda Hamilton poem: “I must let go now. Let you go. Love is too often The answer for staying. Too seldom the reason For going. I drop the line And watch you drift away. “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.”
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