Quotes from Harper Lee

The only thing I'm afraid of about this country is that its government will someday become so monstrous that the smallest person in it will be trampled underfoot, and then it wouldn't be worth living in. The only thing in America that is still unique in this tired world is that a man can go as far as his brains will take him or he can go to hell if he wants to, but it won't be that way much

when I asked Atticus about it, he said there were already enough sunbeams in the family and to go on about my business, he didn't mind me much the way I was.

it's just a baby-step, but it's a step.

Every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally.

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.

Real courage when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. - Atticus Finch

The Haverfords had dispatched Maycomb's leading blacksmith in a misunderstanding arising from the alleged wrongful detention of a mare, were imprudent enough to do it in the presence of three witnesses, and insisted that the son-of-a-bitch-had-it-coming-to-him was a good enough defence for anybody.

From the Maycomb County Citizens' Council. Didn't you know we have one?" "I did not." "Well, your father's on the board of directors and Henry's one of the staunchest members." Alexandra sighed. "Not that we really need one. Nothing's happened here in Maycomb yet, but it's always wise to be prepared. That's where they are this minute.

When uncle Jack caught me, he kept me laughing about a preacher who hated going to church so much that every day he stood at his gate in his dressing-gown, smoking a hookah and delivering fice-minutes sermons to any passers-by who desired spiritual comfort.

Everything I have ever taken for right and wrong these people have taught me—these same, these very people. So it's me, it's not them. Something has happened to me.

A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. But it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself. We

Coragem é fazer uma coisa mesmo estando derrotado antes de começar

She died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew.

I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.

I wondered if anybody had ever called her "ma'am" or "Miss Mayella" in her life; probably not, as she took offense to routine courtesy. What on earth was her life like?

wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.

There's something in our world that makes men lose their heads--they couldn't be fair if they tried.

It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.

I need a watchman to go forth and proclaim to them all that twenty-six years is too long to play a joke on anybody, no matter how funny it is.

In the dim past, Atticus had owned an old canvas-top touring car, and once when he was taking Jem, Henry, and Jean Louise swimming, the car rolled over a particularly bad hump in the road and deposited Jem without. Atticus drove serenely on until they reached Barker's Eddy, because Jean Louise had no intention of advising her father that Jem was no longer present, and she prevented Henry from doing so by catching his finger and bending it back.

The night-crawlers had retired, but ripe chinaberries drummed on the roof when the wind stirred, and the darkness was desolate with the barking of distant dogs.

We have to do a lot of things we don't want to do, Jean Louise." She blazed. "What kind of answer is that?

Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. - Atticus Finch

For a while' in Maycomb meant anything from three days to thirty years.