Quotes from Harper Lee

A mob's always made up of people, no matter what. Mr. Cunningham was part of a mob last night, but he was still a man. Every mob in every little Southern town is always made up of people you know--doesn't say much for them, does it?

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 parched landscape; but most of all, summer was Dill.

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.

Go away, the old buildings said. There is no place for you here. You are not wanted. We have secrets.

I can't beat you, I can't join you.

When stalking one's prey, it is best to take one's time. Say nothing, and as sure as eggs he will become curious and emerge.

We wondered, sometimes, when your conscience and his would part company, and over what." Dr. Finch smiled. "Well, we know now. I'm just thankful I was around when the ructions started. Atticus couldn't talk to you the way I'm talking—" "Why not, sir?" "You wouldn't have listened to him. You couldn't have listened. Our gods are remote from us, Jean Louise. They must never descend to human level.

I didn't know how you were going to do it, but from now on I'll never worry about what'll become of you, son, you'll always have an idea.

I just thought you'd like to know I can read. You got anything needs readin' I can do it.

Nothing is more deadly than a deserted, waiting street.

Long ago, in a burst of friendliness, Aunty and Uncle Jimmy produced a son named Henry…

I suppose she chose me because she knew my name; as I read the alphabet a faint line appeared between her eyebrows, and after making me read most of My First Reader and the stock-market quotations from The Mobile Register aloud, she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste. Miss Caroline told me to tell my father not to teach me any more, it would interfere with my reading.

You can pet him, Mr. Arthur. He's asleep...

Fino al giorno in cui mi minacciarono di non lasciarmi più leggere, non seppi di amare la lettura: si ama, forse, il proprio respiro?

Just remember that sometimes, the way you think about a person isn't the way they actually are.

If this thing's hushed up it'll be a simple denial to Jem of the way I've tried to raise him. Sometimes I think I'm a total failure as a parent, but I'm all they've got. Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I've tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.. if I connived at something like this, frankly I couldn't meet his eye, and the day I can't do that I'll know I've lost him. I don't want to lose him and Scout, because they're all I've got.

She went to him. "Atticus," she said. "I'm—" "You may be sorry, but I'm proud of you." She looked up and saw her father beaming at her. "What?" "I said I'm proud of you." "I don't understand you. I don't understand men at all and I never will." "Well, I certainly hoped a daughter of mine'd hold her ground for what she thinks is right—stand up to me first of all.

It's not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike- in the second place, folks don't like to have somebody around knowin' more than they do.

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

text for today is taken from the twenty-first chapter of Isaiah, verse six: For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.

Atticus said naming people after Confederate generals made slow steady drinkers.

But a man who has lived by truth—and you have believed in what he has lived—he does not leave you merely wary when he fails you, he leaves you with nothing.

Being Southerners, it was a source of shame to some members of the family that we had no recorded ancestors on either side of the Battle of Hastings.

Good grief, baby, people don't agree with the Klan, but they certainly don't try to prevent them from puttin' on sheets and making fools of themselves in public.