To Kill a Mockingbird

"When Jem was nearly thirteen, my father said he could do anything from then on—anything."

"As if that wasn't enough, we've lost our heads."

"It's not honourable to fight when you know you're licked before you start."

"Atticus was right. One time he said you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view."

"Courage is not a man with a gun. The real courage is when you know you're beat."

"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens or nest in corncribs; they just sing their hearts out."

"Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

"The simple hell of it is, we've forgotten how to talk to each other."

"I'm simply defending a Negro."

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

"Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I've tried to live so I can look straight back."

"As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life."

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

"Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway."

"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."

"Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with all sensible children."

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

"After all, if Aunty could say such things, why couldn't Dill?"

"I wanted to beg him to keep his head up."

"There's something in our world that makes men lose their heads."

"Do the best you can with the lot you've been given."

"The courthouse with its sagging shelves and bins held the record of many transgressions."

"Maybe he'll go to heaven, then."

"She was a bitter old woman."

"Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand."

"What happened to Tom's hands?"

"People have a way of carrying their resentments into a jury box."

"I wanted to put my arms around him and comfort him."

"He had told us the year before that the book had no clue."

"It was a relief to see that even our father couldn't ram himself down the throat of the almighty."