To Kill a Mockingbird Quotes

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. – Atticus Finch

People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for. – Atticus Finch

I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the backyard, 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. – Atticus Finch

I 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. – Atticus Finch

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. – Miss Maudie

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. – Scout Finch

Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of another. – Atticus Finch

The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it – whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash. – Atticus Finch

I’m simply defending a Negro—his name’s Tom Robinson. He lives in that little settlement beyond the town dump. He’s a member of Calpurnia’s church, and Cal knows his family well. She says they’re clean-living folks. – Atticus Finch

People in their right minds never take pride in their talents. – Miss Maudie

You can choose your friends but you sho’ can’t choose your family, an’ they’re still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge ’em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don’t. – Harper Lee

It’s not time to worry yet. – Atticus Finch

They’ve done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do it — seems that only the children weep. – Miss Maudie

All I want to be is a normal decent human being, and you all won’t let me. – Boo Radley

What would happen if all the Negroes in the South were suddenly given full civil rights? I’ll tell you. There’d be another Reconstruction. Would you want your state governments run by people who don’t know how to run ‘em? Do you want this town run by… them? – Atticus Finch

It ain’t right. He didn’t kill anybody – Calpurnia

I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks. – Scout Finch

The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience. – Atticus Finch

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. – Scout Finch

Hypocrites! Hypocrites, Mrs. Perkins, hypocrites! – Atticus Finch

We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe. – Henry Lafayette Dubose

I do my best to love everybody. – Atticus Finch

Watch your mouth! When you’re in somebody’s house, you’ll talk like they talk. – Calpurnia

It’s not necessary to tell all you know. It’s not ladylike – in the second place, folks don’t like to have someone around knowing more than they do. It agitates them. – Aunt Alexandra

She’s an old lady and she’s ill. You just hold your head high and be a gentleman. Whatever she says to you, it’s your job not to let her make you mad. – Atticus Finch

Our battles were with Tarzan and the Indians in the back lot and the Chinese in the front. – Scout Finch

Nobody ever helps me into carriages or over mud puddles or gives me any best—why that’s only in books! – Scout Finch

Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they’re not attracting attention with it. – Atticus Finch

She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there were some subtle differences between Southern honor and Southern pride. – Scout Finch

Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. – Scout Finch

I realized that there was a part of me that distinguished them from me. – Scout Finch

For reasons unfathomable to the most experienced prophets in Maycomb County, autumn turned to winter that year. – Scout Finch

You just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let ’em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change. – Atticus Finch

The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience. – Atticus Finch

The only thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience. – Reverend Sykes

You just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let ’em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change. – Atticus Finch

I never understood her preoccupation with heredity. – Scout Finch

I never loved reading until I feared I would lose it. One does not love breathing. – Scout Finch

The only thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience. – Atticus Finch

Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of another… There’s just some kind of men you have to shoot before you can say hidy to ‘em. Even then, they ain’t worth the bullet it takes to shoot ‘em. – Miss Maudie

Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win. – Atticus Finch

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

Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. – Atticus Finch

I 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 see it through no matter what. – Atticus Finch

The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. – Atticus Finch

Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win. – Atticus Finch

It’s not time to worry yet. – Atticus Finch

I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks. – Scout Finch

You just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let ’em get your goat. – Atticus Finch

It’s funny, he said we were so deep in a hole there was no way out. Another time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. – Scout Finch