Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

"It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn’t hurt you."

"With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable."

"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."

"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."

"Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)... There are just some kind of men who - who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results."

"Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird."

"Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts."

"I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks."

"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."

"Atticus, he was real nice.""Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them."

"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."

"When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion faster than adults, and evasion simply muddles 'em."

"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."

"In Maycomb, if one went for a walk with no definite purpose in mind, it was correct to believe one's mind incapable of definite purpose."

"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."

"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."

"Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what."

"They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... 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."

"People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for."

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."