It’s better to be silent than to be a fool.

In Maycomb, if one went for a walk with no definite purpose in mind, it was correct to believe one’s mind incapable of definite purpose.

With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable.

People have a habit of doing everyday things even under the oddest conditions.

Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a...

I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.”[Writer’s Digest, September 1961]

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...

She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with....

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

Scout- .. Uncle Jack?”Uncle Jack- “Ma’am?”Scout- “What’s a whore-lady?

Regarding people who were difficult to accept or respect, Nelle said, ” Our response to these people represents our earthly test. And I think, that these people enrich the wonder of our lives. It is...

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...

But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal—there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an...

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.

Persecution comes from people who are prejudiced.

I think there might be a better way,change the law

Dill said striking a match under a turtle was hateful.”Ain’t hateful, just persuades him- ‘s not like you’d chunk him in the fire,” Jem growled.”How do you know a match don’t hurt him?””Turtles can’t feel...

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 faster than adults, and evasion simply muddles ’em.

So far nothing in your life has interfered with your reasoning process.

Atticus, you must be wrong.” “How’s that?” “Well, most folks seem to think they’re right and you’re wrong. . .” “They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions,”...

Miss Gates is a nice lady, ain’t she?”Why sure,” said Jem. “I liked her when I was in her room.”She hates Hitler a lot . . .”What’s wrong with that?”Well, she went on today about...

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

Whatever she says to you, it’s your jobnot to let her make you mad.

I’ve heard that lawyers’ children, on seeing their parents in court in the heat of argument, get the wrong idea: they think opposing counsel to be the personal enemies of their parents, they suffer agonies,...

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.

If we followed our feelings all the time, we’d be like cats chasin’ their tails.

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.

We saw Uncle Jack every Christmas, and every Christmas he yelled across the street for Miss Maudie to come marry him. Miss Mauide would yell back, “Call a little louder, Jack Finch, and they’ll hear...

Everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowing.

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.

The gum looked fresh. I sniffed it and it smelled all right. I licked it and waited for a while. When I did not die, I crammed it into my mouth: Wrigley’s Double Mint.

There was nowhere to go, but I turned to go and met Atticus’s vest front. I buried my head in it and listened to the small internal noises that went on behind the light blue...

As you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to others, and don’t think you are the most important being on earth. Rich or poor, you then can look anyone in the eye...

Miss Mayella” in her life; probably not, as she took offense to routine courtesy. What on earth was her life like? I soon found out.

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’s just some kind of men you have to shoot before you can say hidy to ’em. Even then, they ain’t worth the bullet it takes to shoot ’em.

I wanted you to see something about her—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...

Are you proud of yourself tonight that you have insulted a total stranger whose circumstances you know nothing about?

La seule chose qui ne doive pas céder à la loi de la majorité est la conscience de l’individu

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

The witnesses for the state, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County, have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident...

With him, life was routine, without him, life was unbearable.

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

In other words, all I want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama

You see they could never, never understand that I live like I do because that’s the way I want to live.

We can’t always have our druthers.

She was the bravest person I ever knew.

I wonder how much of the day I spend just callin’ after you.

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...

She knew full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking, she persisted in breaking it.