QUOTES FROM TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Chapter 1
Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. . . . There was no hurry, for there was
nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb
County. But it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb County had recently been told
that it had nothing to fear but fear itself. (Scout)

Chapter 2
"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing." (Scout)

Chapter 3
You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of viewuntil you climb into his
skin and walk around in it. (Atticus)

Chapter 5
"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." (Miss Maudie)

"You are too young to understand it ... but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey
bottle in the hand of - oh, of your father." (Miss Maudie)

Chapter 7
"Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts." (Scout)

Chapter 9
"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." (Atticus)

"You might hear some ugly talk about it at school, but do one thing for me if you will: you just hold your head
high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don't you let 'em get your goat. Try
fighting with your head for a change." (Atticus)

"Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win"
(Atticus)

"I asked him to pass the damn ham, please" (Scout)

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

Chapter 10
"Remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do
something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.
"Your father's right," she said. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat
up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why
it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." (Scout, Atticus and Miss Maudie Atkinson)

"Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."
(Atticus)

Chapter 11
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. (Scout)

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

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. (Atticus)

"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 (Atticus)
"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." (Scout)

Chapter 12
"With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable." (Scout)

Chapter 15
"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." (Scout)

Chapter 20
"Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levellers,
and in our courts all men are created equal." (Atticus)
Chapter 22
They've done it before and they did it tonight and they'll do it again and when they do itseems that only
children weep. (Atticus)

Chapter 23
"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." (Atticus)

"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, that white man is trash." (Atticus)

"I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks." (Scout)

"Atticus says 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." (Jem)
"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."
(Jem)

Chapter 24
"Whether Maycomb knows it or not, we're paying the highest tribute we can pay a man. We trust him to do right.
It's that simple." (Miss Maudie)

Chapter 25
Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts
Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed. (Scout)

Chapter 31
A boy trudged down the sidewalk dragging a fishing pole behind him. A man stood waiting with his hands on his
hips. Summertime, and his children played in the front yard with their friend, enacting a strange little drama of
their own invention. It was fall, and his children fought on the sidewalk in front of Mrs. Dubose's. . . . Fall, and his
children trotted to and fro around the corner, the day's woes and triumphs on their faces. They stopped at an oak
tree, delighted, puzzled, apprehensive. Winter, and his children shivered at the front gate, silhouetted against a
blazing house. Winter, and a man walked into the street, dropped his glasses, and shot a dog. Summer, and he
watched 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. (Scout)

When they finally saw him, why he hadn't done any of those things . . . Atticus, he was real nice. . . ." His hands
were under my chin, pulling up the cover, tucking it around me. "Most people are, Scout, when you finally see
them." He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there
when Jem waked up in the morning. (Scout and Atticus)

"Atticus, he was real nice"

"Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them." (Scout and Atticus)