37 quotes
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 see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Had I ever harbored the mystical notions about mountains that seem to obsess lawyers and judges, Aunt Alexandra would have been analogous to Mount Everest: throughout my early life , she was cold and there.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
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.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
That’s because you can’t hold something in your mind but a little while, said Jem. It’s different with grown folks, we—
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
From now on it’ll be everybody less one—
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
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.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Slowly but surely I began to see the pattern of questions: from questions that Mr.Gilmer did not deem sufficiently irrelevant or immaterial to object to, Atticus was quietly building up before the jury the picture of the Ewell's home life.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Well if you don’t want me to grow up talkin‘ that way, why do you send me to school?
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
When the new wore off his grandfather’s watch, and carrying it became a day’s burdensome task, Jem no longer felt the necessity of ascertaining the hour every five minutes.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
"I think I'll be a clown when I get grown," said Dill. "Yes, sir, a clown.... There ain't one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm gonna join the circus and laugh my head off."
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
"An' they chased him 'n' never could catch him 'cause they didn't know what he looked like, an' Atticus, when they finally saw him, why he hadn't done any of those things... Atticus, he was real nice..."
"Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them."
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for 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.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
So it took an eight-year-old child to bring 'em to their senses.... That proves something — that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human. Hmp, maybe we need a police force of children.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Atticus said that Jem was trying hard to forget something, but what he was really doing was storing it away for a while, until enough time passed. Then he would be able to think about it and sort things out. When he was able to think about it, Jem would be himself again.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
And it's certainly bad, but when a man spends his relief checks on green whiskey his children have a way of crying from hunger pains. I don't know of any landowner around here who begrudges those children any game their father can hit. Of course he shouldn't, but he'll never change his ways. Are you going to take out your disapproval on his children?
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
...reasonable men, they went because we were there. There’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads — they couldn’t be fair if they tried.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)