Quotes from Harper Lee

As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place he'll look for his lessons.

Don't talk like that, Dill," said Aunt Alexandra. "It's not becoming to a child. It's – cynical." "I ain't cynical, Miss Alexandra. Tellin' the truth's not cynical, is it?" "The way you tell it, it is.

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.

Remember this also: it's always easy to look back and see what we were, yesterday, ten years ago. It is hard to see what we are. If you can master that trick, you'll get along.

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. 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.

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 and say, 'I'm probably no better than you, but I'm certainly your equal.

I don't want to hear any words like that while I'm here. Scout, you'll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to grow up to be a lady, don't you?' I said not particularly.

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.

I'm little but I'm old.

Some negroes lie, some are immoral, some negro men are not be trusted around women - black and white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.

A man can condemn his enemies, but it's wiser to know them.

Dill? Mm? Why do you reckon Boo Radleys never run off? Dill sighed a long sigh and turned away from me. Maybe he doesn't have anywhere to run off to

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

You can't really get to know a person until you get in their shoes and walk around in them.

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, said Atticus, but 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.

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.

Cry about the simple hell people give other people- without even thinking. Cry about the hell white people give colored folks, without even stopping to think that they're people too.

I shall never marry, Atticus. Why? I might have children.

See there? Jem was scowling triumphantly. Nothin' to it. I swear, Scout, sometimes you act so much like a girl its mortifyin

You rarely win, but sometimes you do.

Next morning I awoke, looked out the window and nearly died of fright. My screams brought Atticus from his bathroom half-shaven. The world's endin', Atticus! Please do something -! I dragged him to the window and pointed. No it's not, he said. It's snowing.

Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it. Somehow, it was hotter then. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon after their three o'clock naps. And by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting from sweating and sweet talcum. The day was twenty-four hours long, but it seemed longer. There's no hurry, for there's nowhere to go and nothing to buy...and no money to buy it with.

She was almost in love with him. No, that's impossible, she thought: either you are or you aren't. Love's the only thing in this world that is unequivocal. There are different kinds of love, certainly, but it's a you-do or you-don't proposition with them all. (Chapter 1)

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.