Quotes from Harper Lee

That Walter's as smart as he can be, he just gets held back sometimes because he has to stay out and help his daddy. Nothin's wrong with him. Naw, Jem, I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.

The Gray Ghost, by Seckatary Hawkins.

Atticus said if I paid no attention to him, Jem would come down. Atticus was right.

I don't know, but they did it. They've done it before and they did it tonight and they'll do it again and when they do it—seems that only children weep. Good night.

why, if we followed our feelings all the time we'd be like cats chasin' their tails.

It takes two races to mongrelize a race—if that's the right word—and when we white people holler about mongrelizin', isn't that something of a reflection on ourselves as a race?

It takes considerable getting used to. I hated it for two years. It intimidated me daily until one morning when someone pushed me on a bus and I pushed back. After I pushed back I realized I'd become a part of it.

Defense, hell! Atticus, we aren't on the Constitution now. I'm trying to make you see something. You now, you treat all people alike. I've never in my life seen you give that insolent, back-of-the-hand treatment half the white people down here give Negroes just when they're talking to them, just when they ask 'em to do something. There's no get-along-there-nigger in your voice when you talk to 'em.

Jesus Christ never went around grumbling and complaining

An old campaigner, he did not speak until we were on the sidewalk. "What's up?" "Jem's got the look-arounds," an affliction Calpurnia said all boys caught at his age.

As for me, I knew nothing except what I gathered from Time magazine and reading everything I could lay hands on at home

Never, never, never, on cross-examination ask a witness a question you don't already know the answer to.

The novel must tell a story.

People in their right minds never take pride in their talents,' said Miss Maudie.

You think about that,' Miss Maudie was saying. 'It was no accident. I was sittin' there on the porch last night, waiting. I waited and waited to see you all come down the sidewalk and as I waited I thought. Atticus Finch won't win, he can't win, but he'd the only man in these parts who can keep a jury out so long in a case like that. And I thought to myself, well, we're making a step - it's just a baby-step, but it's a step.

After all, if Aunty could be a lady at a time like this, so could I.

her victim—of necessity she must put him away from her—he must be removed from her presence, from this world. She must destroy the evidence of her offense.

That boy's yo' comp'ny and if he wants to eat up the table cloth you let him, you hear?

cheatin' a colored man is ten times worse than cheatin' a white man

Cecil Jacobs, who lived at the far end of our street next door to the post office, walked a total of one mile per school day to avoid the Radley Place and old Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose. Mrs. Dubose lived two doors up the street from us; neighborhood opinion was unanimous that Mrs. Dubose was the meanest old woman who ever lived. Jem wouldn't go by her place without Atticus beside him.

There's four kinds of folks in the world. There's the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there's the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the

First," he said dispassionately, "hold your tongue. Don't argue with a man, especially when you know you can beat him. Smile a lot. Make him feel big. Tell him how wonderful he is, and wait on him." She smiled brilliantly and said, "Hank, I agree with everything you've said. You are the most perspicacious individual I've met in years, you are six feet five, and may I light your cigarette? How's that?

Men tend to carry their honesty in pigeonholes, Jean Louise. They can be perfectly honest in some ways and fool themselves in other ways.

I think maybe he put his gun down when he realized that God had given him an unfair advantage over most living things. I guess he decided he wouldn't shoot till he had to, and he had to today." "Looks like he'd be proud of it," I said. "People in their right minds never take pride in their talents," said Miss Maudie.