Harper Lee

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather an assessment that something else is more important than fear."

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view."

"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

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

"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, that white man is trash."

"Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through."

"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

"Atticus said to Jem one day, '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 it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'"

"Before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself."

"Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart."

"It's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

"When you're scared of something, you're more aware of it."

"All we're supposed to do is try. We're supposed to take care of our own."

"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."

"You can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family."

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

"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy."

"The truth, simple or awful as it may be, is the sum of all knowledge."

"Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they're not attracting attention with it."

"You can't really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them."

"I'm simply defending niggers. That's enough to make everybody mad."

"We are not primarily put on this earth to see through one another, but to see one another through."

"If you had to take a shot, take a fair shot at a lady."

"I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you'll go after birds."

"The simple hell of it is, we are licked before we started."

"A person is smart. People are dumb."

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

"Let's forget what we think we know about these people. We don't know them."

"Some men are born to greatness, some achieve it, and some have greatness thrust upon them."

"You've got to make a choice with your life. It's a game, really, with two sides battling for supremacy."