Quotes About Tradition

His first two clients were the last two persons hanged in the Maycomb County jail. Atticus had urged them to accept the state's generosity in allowing them to plead Guilty to second-degree murder and escape with their lives, but they were Haverfords, in Maycomb County a name synonymous with jackass.

Atticus said: "Sister, when you stop to think about it, our generation's practically the first in the Finch family not to marry its cousins. Would you say the Finches have an Incestuous Streak?" Aunty said no, that's where we got our small hands and feet.

Trains changed - conductors never did.

Miss Maudie settled her bridgework. "You know old Mr. Radley was a foot-washing Baptist—" "That's what you are, ain't it?" "My shell's not that hard, child. I'm just a Baptist.

No, she didn't. Alexandra saw what Maycomb saw: Maycomb expected every daughter to do her duty. The duty of his only daughter to her widowed father after the death of his only son was clear: Jean Louise would return and make her home with Atticus; that was what a daughter did, and she who did not was no daughter.

it was written on the Rosetta Stone that when children disobeyed their parents, smoked cigarettes and made war on each other, the seasons would change:

He was nearly blind in his left eye, and said left eyes were the tribal curse of the Finches. Whenever he wanted to see something well, he turned his head and looked from his right eye.

Conservative resistance to change, that's all

The same families married the same families until relationships were hopelessly entangled and the members of the community looked monotonously alike.

There's nothing like a blood-curdling hymn to make you feel at home

You're starting off on the wrong foot in every way, my dear. Hold out your hand." 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.

Well, Indian-heads—well, they come from the Indians. They're real strong magic, they make you have good luck.

you better go warn your younger friends that if they want to preserve Our Way of Life, it begins at home. It doesn't begin with the schools or the churches or anyplace but home.

You never went to school and you do all right, so I'll just stay home too. You can teach me like Grandaddy taught you 'n' Uncle Jack." "No

Perhaps our forefathers were wise.

Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft tea-cakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcolm.

When she dressed, she put on her Maycomb clothes: gray slacks, a black sleeveless blouse, white socks, and loafers. Although it was four hours away, she could hear her aunt's sniff of disapproval.

It was customary for the town's three churches—Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian—to unite and listen to one visiting minister, but occasionally when the churches could not agree on a preacher or his salary, each congregation held its own revival with an open invitation to all; sometimes, therefore, the populace was assured of three weeks' spiritual reawakening. Revival time was a time of war:

Entailment's are bad.

Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

the same families married the same families until the members of the community looked faintly alike.

Grandma says all men should learn to cook, that men oughta be careful with their wives and wait on 'em when they don't feel good.' said my cousin.

Geography, tradition, and culture intersect to make blacks likely research subjects for new technologies, but race and economics tend to place them outside the marketplace for these same technologies when they are perfected.

Nothing is allowed to die in a society of storytelling people. It is all-the good and the bad-carted up and brought along from one generation to the next. And everything that is brought along is colored and shaped by those who bring it.