Quotes from Harper Lee

I willed myself to stay awake, but the rain was so soft and the room was so warm and his voice was so deep and his knee was so snug that I slept.

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.

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]

I thought she was going to spit in it, which was the only reason anybody in Maycomb held out his hand: it was a time-honored method of sealing oral contracts. Wondering what bargain we had made, I turned to the class for an answer, but the class looked back at me in puzzlement.

I don't hafta take his sass

There's something in our world that makes men lose their heads—they couldn't be fair if they tried.

That's what I thought, too,' he said at last, 'when I was your age. 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.

Shoulder up, I reeled around to face Boo Radley and his bloody fangs; instead, I saw Dill ringing the bell with all his might in Atticus's face.

Yeah, that's all, said Dill. He'll probably come out after you when he sees you in the yard, then Scout'n' me'll jump on him and hold him down till we can tell him we ain't gonna hurt him.

I was proceeding on the dim theory, aside from the innate attractiveness of such words, that if Atticus discovered I had picked them up at school he wouldn't make me go.

Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between.

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

What happened after that had a dreamlike quality: in a dream I saw the jury return, moving like underwater swimmers, and Judge Taylor's voice came from far away, and was tiny. I saw something only a lawyer's child could be expected to see, could be expected to watch for, and it was like watching Atticus walk into the street, raise a rifle to his shoulder and pull the trigger, but watching all the time knowing that the gun was empty.

Atticus killed several birds with one stone when he read to his children, and would probably have caused a child psychologist considerable dismay: he read to Jem and Jean Louise whatever he happened to be reading, and the children grew up possessed of an obscure erudition. They cut their back teeth on military history, Bills to Be Enacted into Laws, True Detective Mysteries, The Code of Alabama, the Bible, and Palgrave's Golden Treasury.

Persecution comes from people who are prejudiced.

I must have slept a long time, for when I was punched awake the room was dim with the light of the setting moon. Move over, Scout. He thought he had to. I mumbled. Don't stay mad with him. Dill got in bed beside me. I ain't, he said. I just wanted to sleep with you.

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 you the post office, I haven't heard you yet! Jem and I thought this a strange way to ask for a lady's hand in marriage, but then again Uncle Jack was rather strange.

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.

I found myself wondering what life would be if Jem were different, even from what he was now; what I would do if Atticus did not feel the necessity of my presence, help and advice. Why, he couldn't get along a day without me. Even Calpurnia couldn't get along unless I was there. They needed me.

I don't care one speck. It ain't right, somehow it ain't right to do 'em that way. Hasn't anybody got any business talkin' like that- it just makes me sick.

We can't always have our druthers.

Of all days Sunday was the day for formal afternoon visiting: ladies wore corsets, men wore coats, children wore shoes.

You are too young to understand it," she said, "but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of—oh, of your father.

Los ruiseñores no hacen otra cosa que crear música para que la disfrutemos. No se comen los jardines de la gente, no hacen nidos en los graneros, no hacen otra cosa que cantar su corazón para nosotros. Es por eso que es un pecado matar a un ruiseñor.