To Kill a Mockingbird Quotes

“Scout," said Atticus, “when summer comes you’ll have to keep your head about far worse things…it’s not fair for you and Jem, I know that, but sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down – well, all I can say is, when you and Jem are grown, maybe you’ll look back on this with some compassion and some feeling that I didn’t let you down. This case, Tom Robinson’s case, is something that goes to the essence of a man’s conscience – Scout, I couldn’t go to church and worship God if I didn’t try to help that man.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“It is not,' he said. 'It's not ok to hate anybody”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“North Alabama was full of Liquor Interests, Big Mules, steel companies, Republicans, professors, and other persons of no background.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“—Ven, Scout —susurró—. No le hagas ningún caso; levanta bien la cabeza, nada más, y sé un caballero.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“—¿Cómo han podido hacerlo; cómo han podido?
—No lo sé, pero lo han hecho. Lo hicieron en otras ocasiones anteriores, lo han hecho esta noche y lo harán de nuevo, y cuando lo hacen... parece que sólo lloran los niños. Buenas noches.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy head. He could read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of his own inventions. He could add and subtract faster than lightning, but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept, waiting to be gathered like morning lillies. He was slowly talking himself to sleep at taking me with him, but in the quietness of his foggy island there rose the faded image of a gray house with sad brown doors.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“She wore a smile like a loaded gun.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“What Mr. Radley did was his own business. If he wanted to come out, he would. If he wanted to stay inside his own house he had the right to stay inside free from the attentions of inquisitive children, which was a mild term for the likes of us. How would we like it if Atticus barged in on us without knocking, when we were in our rooms at night? We were, in effect, doing the same thing to Mr. Radley. What Mr. Radley did might seem peculiar to us, but it did not seem peculiar to him.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Atticus said someone must have lost it, and had we asked around? Jem camel-kicked me when I tried to say where we had found it.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Until I feared I would lose it I never loved to read, one does not simply love breathing.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird