Kill A Mockingbird Novel Quotes

We're paying the highest tribute you can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It's that simple.

Things are never as bad as they seem.

Let the dead bury the dead.

You can choose your friends, but you sho' can't choose your family.

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

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

Folks don't like to have somebody around knowing more than they do.

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.

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...

hold your head high and keep those fists down - Atticus Finch

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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 I'll be a clown when I get grown.... 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.

Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.

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

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 think I'll be a clown when I get grown,' said Dill. Jem and I stopped in our tracks. Yes sir, a clown,' he said. '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.' You got it backwards, Dill,' said Jem. 'Clowns are sad, it's folks that laugh at them.' Well 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'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system - that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality.

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.

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.

Best way to clear the air is to have it all out in the open.

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

I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system -- that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up.

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.

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.

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.