Kill A Mockingbird Quotes

I'm a huge classics fan. I love Ernest Hemingway and J.D. Salinger. I'm that guy who rereads a book before I read newer stuff, which is probably not all that progressive, and it's not really going to make me a better reader. I'm like, 'Oh, my God, you should read To Kill a Mockingbird.

Try fighting with your head for a change... it's a good one, even if it does resist learning.

Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.

I have 'To Kill A Mockingbird' signed by Harper Lee. That is my prized possession.

I would say what was always on her[Harper Lee] mind was the stories she had to tell, and the story was pretty obvious in "To Kill A Mockingbird," maybe a bit - little bit less obvious and more obscure in "Go Set A Watchman."

It's not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike -- in the second place, folks don't like to have someone around knowin' more than they do. It aggravates them. Your not gonna change any of them by talkin' right, they've got to want to learn themselves, and when they don't want to learn there's nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language.

I have finished To Kill a Mockingbird. It is now my favorite book of all time, but then again, I always think that until I read another book.

When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness' sake.

I never expected any sort of success with 'Mockingbird'... I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement.

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

You never really know a man until you have divorced him.

If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? 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.

Hey, Mr. Cunningham. How's your entailment gettin' along?

A mob's always made up of people, no matter what. Mr. Cunningham was part of a mob last night, but he was still a man. Every mob in every little Southern town is always made up of people you know--doesn't say much for them, does it?

I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.

I would come, many years later, to understand why To Kill A Mockingbird is considered an important novel, but when I first read it at 11, I was simply absorbed by the way it evoked the mysteries of childhood, of treasures discovered in trees, and games played with an exotic summer friend.

Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.

I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.

The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think.

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.

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.

I lived an idyllic 'Huckleberry Finn' life in a tiny town. Climbing trees. Tagging after brothers. Happy. Barefoot on my pony. It was 'To Kill a Mockingbird'-esque.

I remember when my daddy gave me that gun. He told me that I should never point it at anything in the house; and that he'd rather I'd shoot at tin cans in the backyard. But he said that sooner or later he supposed the temptation to go after birds would be too much, and that I could shoot all the blue jays I wanted - if I could hit 'em; but to remember it was a sin to kill a mockingbird.

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.

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.

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

Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of another... 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.

Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.

Summer, and he watches his children's heart break. Autumn again and Boo's children needed him. Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough.

Atticus, he was real nice." "Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.

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.

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.

That proves something- that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human.

It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn’t hurt you.

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.

Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand.

Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

You rarely win, but sometimes you do.

This time we aren't fighting the Yankees, we're fighting our friends. But remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they're still our friends and this is still our home.

I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year. Scout

The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box.

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.

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

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

As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, he is trash.

When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness’ sake. But don’t make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles ‘em. No... you had the right answer this afternoon, but the wrong reasons. Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they’re not attracting attention with it. Hotheadedness isn’t.

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

You can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family, an' they're still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge 'em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don't.

The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.

...but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself.