Quotes from Harper Lee

He rarely gathered news; people brought it to him. It was said he made up every edition of The Maycombe Tribune out of his own head and wrote it down on the linotype.

There was a time, long ago, when the only peaceful moments of her existence were those from the time she opened her eyes in the morning until she attained full consciousness, a matter of seconds until when finally roused she entered the day's wakeful nightmare.

When I pointed to him his palms slipped slightly, leaving greasy sweat streaks on the wall, and he hooked his thumbs in his belt. A strange small spasm shook him, as if he heard fingernails scrape slate, but as I gazed at him in wonder the tension slowly drained from his face. His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor's image blurred with my sudden tears. "Hey, Boo," I said.

An oppressive odor met us when we crossed the threshold, an odor I had met many times in rain-rotted gray houses where there are coal-oil lamps, water dippers, and unbleached domestic sheets. It always made me afraid, expectant, watchful.

you saw something come between them and reason. You saw the same thing that night in front of the jail. When that crew went away, they didn't go as reasonable men, they went because we were there. There's something in our world that makes men lose their heads—they couldn't be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins.

You folks might be better than the Cunninghams, but it doesn't count for nothing the way you're disgracing them.

First thing you learn when you're in a lawin' family is that there ain't any definite answers to anything.

He looked all Negro to me: he was rich chocolate with flaring nostrils and beautiful teeth. Sometimes he would skip happily , and the Negro woman tugged his hand to make him stop.

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

He's good and dead. He won't hurt these children again.

I proved him a liar but John made him look like a fool. All the time Ewell was on the stand I couldn't dare look at John and keep a straight face. John looked at him as if he were a three-legged chicken or a square egg. Don't tell me judges don't try to prejudice juries.

Porque la única razón de ser viejo es empezar a vivir tarde

Well, most folks seem to think they're right and you're wrong. . . ." "They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions," said Atticus, "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.

Mrs. Merriweather played her voice like an organ; every word she said received its full measure:

Exista un soi de oameni care ... se gindesc atit de mult la lumea cealalta, incit n-ajung niciodata sa invete cum sa traiasca in lumea asta.

It might be because he knows in his heart that very few people in Maycomb really believed his and Mayella's yarns. He thought he'd be a hero, but all he got for his pain was… was, okay, we'll convict this Negro but get back to your dump.

Je voulais que tu comprennes quelque chose, que tu voies ce qu'est le vrai courage, au lieu de t'imaginer que c'est un homme avec un fusil dans la main. Le courage, c'est savoir que tu pars battu, mais d'agir quand même sans s'arrêter. Tu gagnes rarement mais cela peut arriver.

Relax, son, Atticus had told him in one of his rare comments on her. Don't push her. Let her go at her own speed. Push her and every mule in the county'd be easier to live with.

Tribunalul reprezinta tinutul... in aceeasi masura ca si ceaiurile misionarilor.

Je t'ai déjà dit que si tu n'avais pas perdu ton sang-froid, je t'aurais quand même envoyé lui faire la lecture. Je voulais que tu comprennes quelque chose, que tu voies ce qu'est le vrai courage au lieu de t'imaginer que c'est un homme avec un fusil dans la main. Le courage, c'est savoir que tu pars battu, mais d'agir quand même sans s'arrêter. Tu gagnes rarement mais cela peut arriver.

The law says 'reasonable doubt,' but I think a defendant's entitled to the shadow of a doubt. There's always the possibility, no matter how improbable, that he's innocent.

Cousin Joshua was frustrated by the authorities when he fired upon the president of the University, who in his opinion was little more than a sewage disposal expert. This was no doubt true, but an idle excuse for assault with a deadly wapon. After much passing around of money Cousin Joshua was moved across the tracks and placed in state accommodations for the irresponsible, where he remained for the rest of his days.

I need a watch man, to tell me this is what a man says but this is what he means, to draw a line down the middle and say here is this justice and there is that justice and make me understand the difference. 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

The book to read is not the one that thinks for you, but the one that makes you think.