Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” Quotes (86 Quotes)

Asked him and he said he wasn't. Besides, nothin's real scary except on books.

I could think of nothing else to say to her. In fact I could never think of anything to say to her, and I sat thinking of past painful conversations between us: How are you, Jean Louise? Fine, thank you ma'am, how are you? Very well, thank you; what have you been doing with yourself? Nothin'. Don't you do anything? Nome. Certainly you have friends? Yessum. Well what do you all do? Nothin'.

Jen and I were accustomed to our father's last-will-and-testament diction, and were at times free to interrupt Atticus for a translation when it was beyond our understanding.

People don't like to have somebody knowing more than they do. It aggravates them.

The warm bittersweet smell of clean Negro welcomed us as we entered the churchyard-Hearts of Love hairdressing mingled with asafoetida, snuff, Hoyt's Cologne, Brown's Mule, peppermint, and lilac talcum.

You can't really get to know a person until you get in their shoes and walk around in them.

Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in.

I didn't know how you were going to do it, but from now on I'll never worry about what'll become of you, son, you'll always have an idea.

Ladies in bunches always filled me with vague apprehension and a firm desire to be elsewhere.

People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.

There are just some kind of men who-who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.

You damn morphodite, I'll kill you!

Atticus said naming people after Confederate generals made slow steady drinkers.

I don't know, but they did it. They've done it before and they did it tonight and they'll do it again and when they do it--seems that only children weep.

Long ago, in a burst of friendliness, Aunty and Uncle Jimmy produced a son named Henry…

People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.

There are just some kind of men…who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one.

You see they could never, never understand that I live like I do because that's the way I want to live.

Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts.

I lay on my stomach, reached down and poked him. He rolled up. Then, feeling safe, I suppose, he slowly unrolled. He travelled a few inches in his hundred legs and I touched him again. He rolled up. Feeling sleepy, I decided to end things. My hand was going down on him when Jem spoke.

Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it. Somehow, it was hotter then. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon after their three o'clock naps. And by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting from sweating and sweet talcum. The day was twenty-four hours long, but it seemed longer. There's no hurry, for there's nowhere to go and nothing to buy...and no money to buy it with.

She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl.

There are some men in this world who are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father's one of them.

Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they're not attracting attention with it.

I say guilt, gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society.

Miss Caroline seemed unaware that the ragged, denim-shirted and floursack-skirted first grade, most of whom had chopped cotton and fed hogs from the time they were able to walk, were immune to imaginative literature.

She was born in the Objective case.

They're ugly, but those are the facts of life.

Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I've tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.

I suppose she chose me because she knew my name; as I read the alphabet a faint line appeared between her eyebrows, and after making me read most of My First Reader and the stock-market quotations from The Mobile Register aloud, she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste. Miss Caroline told me to tell my father not to teach me any more, it would interfere with my reading.

Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin'.

Shoulder up, I reeled around to face Boo Radley and his bloody fangs; instead, I saw Dill ringing the bell with all his might in Atticus's face.

They've done it before and they'll do it again and when they do it -- seems that only the children weep. Good night.

Being Southerners, it was a source of shame to some members of the family that we had no recorded ancestors on either side of the Battle of Hastings.

I try to give'em a reason, you see. It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason.

Miss Maudie's hand closed tightly on mine, and I said nothing. Its warmth was enough.

Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.

Things are always better in the morning.

Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives.

I was not so sure, but Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that's why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off and find some to play with.

Mr. Avery said it was written on the Rosetta Stone that when children disobeyed their parents, smoked cigarettes and made war on each other, the seasons would change: Jem and I were burdened with the guilt of contributing to the aberrations of nature, thereby causing unhappiness to our neighbors and discomfort to ourselves.

Some negroes lie, some are immoral, some negro men are not be trusted around women - black and white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.

Things are never as bad as they seem.

Cecil Jacobs is a big wet hen!

I was proceeding on the dim theory, aside from the innate attractiveness of such words, that if Atticus discovered I had picked them up at school he wouldn't make me go.

Mutual defiance made them alike.

Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

Thought you could kill my Snow-on-the-Mountain, did you? Well, Jessie says that the top's growing back out. Next time you'll know how to do it right, won't you? You'll pull it up by the roots, won't you?

Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. It's knowing you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.

If this thing's hushed up it'll be a simple denial to Jem of the way I've tried to raise him. Sometimes I think I'm a total failure as a parent, but I'm all they've got. Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I've tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.. if I connived at something like this, frankly I couldn't meet his eye, and the day I can't do that I'll know I've lost him. I don't want to lose him and Scout, because they're all I've got.