Important Quotations
Courtesy of Angela Y.
“According to neighborhood legend, when the younger Radley boy was in his teens he became acquainted with some of the Cunninghams. “ -Scout (p10)
“So Jem received most of his information from Miss Stephanie Crawford, a neighborhood scold, who said she knew the whole thing.” -Scout (p11)
“Atticus said no, it wasn’t that sort of thing, that there were other ways of making people into ghosts.” -Scout; (p11)
“From the day Mr. Radley took Arthur home, people said the house died.” -Scout (p12)
“There goes the meanest man ever God blew breath into.” -Calpurnia (p12)
“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” -Scout; reading is life to her (p18)
“When she was admitted into our confidence, every time she baked she made a big cake and three little ones, and she would call across the street: ‘Jem Finch, Scout Finch, Charles Baker Harris, come here!’ Our promptness was always rewarded.” -Scout (p43)
“In the glare from the streetlight, I could see Dill hatching one: his eyes widened, his fat cherub face grew rounder. ‘What is it, Dill?’ asked Atticus. ‘Ah-I won ‘em from him,’ he said vaguely. ‘Won them? How?’ Dill’s hand sought the back of his head. he brought it forward and across his forehead. ‘We were playin’ strip poker up yonder by the fish pool,’ he said.” -Narrator (p54)
“Jem took a deep breath. ‘When I went back, they were folded across the fence…like they were expectin’ me.’ ” -Scout (p58)
“From then on, we considered everything we found in the knot-hole our property.” -Scout (p59)
“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 guilt of contributing to the aberrations of nature, thereby causing unhappiness to our neighbors and discomfort to ourselves.” -Scout (p63)
“See what you’ve done? Hasn’t snowed in Maycomb since Appomattox. It’s bad children like you makes the seasons change.” -Mr. Avery; (p65)
“ ‘Someday, maybe Scout can thank him for covering her up.’ ‘Thank who?’ I asked. ‘Boo Radley.’ -Narrator; after Boo covered Scout with a blanket (p72)
“From now on it’ll be everybody less one-” -Atticus; discussing Scout’s use of the “N” word (p75)
“For a number of reasons. the main one is, if I didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this country in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not to do something again.” -Atticus; explaining his defense of Tom Robinson (p75)
“Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.” -Atticus (p76)
“I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” -Atticus (p90)
“People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.” -Mrs. Maudie (p98)
“They’re certainly entitle to think that, and they’re entitle to full respect from their opinions, but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.” -Atticus (p105)
“…-ignorant, trashy people us it when they think somebody’s favoring Negroes over and above themselves. It’s slipped into usage with some people like ourselves, when they want a common, ugly term to label somebody.”- Atticus; defining “nigger-lover” (p108)
“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know 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. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew.” -Atticus (p112)
“…called First Purchase because it was paid for from the first earnings of freed slaves.” -Scout; referring to Calpurnia’s church (p118)
“It’s the same God, ain’t it?” -Calpurnia; after hearing complaints of her bringing Scout and Jem (p119)
“Well, if everybody in Maycomb knows what kind of folks the Ewells are they’d be glad to hire Helen . . . what’s rape, Cal?” -Scout (p124)
“That makes the Ewells fine folks, then. The tribe of which Burris Ewell and his brethren consisted had lived on the same plot of earth behind the Maycomb dump, and had thrived on county welfare money for three generations.” -Jem (p130)
“For a big man, Atticus could get up and down from a chair faster than anyone I ever knew. He was on his feet. ‘Apologize to your aunt,’ he said.” -Scout; after disrespecting Aunt Alexandra (p136)
“Dill sighed a long sigh and turned away from me. ‘Maybe he doesn’t have anywhere to run off to. . .’ ” -Scout; discussing why Boo doesn’t run away (p144)
“Mr. Underwood had no use for any organization but The Maycomb Tribune, of which he was the sole owner, editor, and printer.” -Narrator (p147)
“All the little man on the witness stand had that made him any better than his nearest neighbors was, that if scrubbed with lye soap in very hot water, his skin was white.” -Narrator (p171)
“-I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin’ on my Mayella!” -Mr. Ewell (p173)
“Jedge, I’ve asked this county for fifteen years to clean out that nest down yonder, they’re dangerous to live around ‘sides devaluing’ my property-” -Mr. Ewell (p175)
“Never, never, never, on cross-examination ask a witness a question you don’t already know the answer to. Do it, and you’ll often get an answer you don’t want, an answer that might wreck your case.” -Atticus (p177)
“About your writing with your left hand, are you ambidextrous, Mr. Ewell?” -Mr. Gilmer; after Atticus proved Ewell left-handed (p178)
“He got it caught in a cotton gin, caught it in Mr. Dolphus Raymond’s cotton gin when he was a boy . . . like to bled to death . . . tore all the muscles loose from his bones-” -Reverend Sykes (p186)
“No suh, not after she offered me a nickel the first time. I was glad to do it, Mr. Ewell didn’t seem to help her none, and neither did the chillun, and I knowed she didn’t have no nickels to spare.” -Tom Robinson (p191)
“ ‘I was scared, suh.’ ‘Why were you scared?’ ‘Mr. Finch, if you was a nigger like me, you’d be scared, too.’ ” -Narrator; Mr. Finch questioning Tom (p195)
“You felt sorry for her, you felt sorry for her?” -Mr. Gilmer; after Tom said he felt sorry for Mayella (p197)
“Because you’re children and you can understand it, and because I heard that one-” -Dolphus Raymond; answering why he trusted Dill and Scout with his secret (p201)
“ ‘Cry about a simple hell people give other people-without even thinking. Cry about the hell white people give colored folks, without even stopping to think that they’re people, too.’ ‘Atticus says cheatin’ a colored man is ten times worse than cheatin; a white man. Says it’s the worst thing you can do.’ ” -Narrator; Dolphus Raymond and Scout (p201)
“There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire.” -Atticus (p204)
“What happened after that had a dreamlike quality: in a dream I saw the jury return, moving like underwater swimmers, and Judge Taylor’s voice came from far away and was tiny. I saw something only a lawyer’s child could be expected to see, could be expected to watch for, and it was like watching Atticus walk into the street, raise a rifle to his shoulder and pull the trigger, but watching all the time knowing that the gun was empty.” -Scout (p210-211)
“ ‘How could they do it, how could they?’ ‘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. Good night.’ ” -Narrator; Jem and Atticus discussing Tom’s conviction (p213)
“He told me havin’ a gun around’s an invitation to somebody to shoot you.” -Jem; referring to Atticus (p217)
“I destroyed his last shred of credibility at that trial, if he had any to begin with. The man had to have some kind of comeback, his kind always does. So if spitting in my face and threatening me saved Mayella Ewell one extra beating, that’s something I’ll gladly take. He had to take it out on somebody and I’d rather it be me than that houseful of children out there. You understand?” -Atticus; referring to Mr. Ewell (p218)
“There’s nothing more sickening to me than a low-grade white man who’ll take advantage of a Negro’s ignorance. Don’t fool yourselves-it’s all adding up and one of these days we’re going to pay the bill for it. I hope it’s not in you children’s time.” -Atticus (p221)
“Scout, I think I’m beginning to understand something. I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time . . . it’s because he wants to stay inside.” -Jem (p227)
“Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret court of men’s hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.” -Scout (p241)
“There’s a black boy dead for no reason, and the man responsible for it’s dead. Let the dead bury the dead this time, Mr. Finch. Let the dead bury the dead.” -Sheriff Heck Tate (p276)