Harper Lee

I mean this: every time I come home, I feel like I'm coming back to the world, and when I leave Macomb it's like leaving the world.

There are just some kind of men who__e so busy worrying about the next world they__e never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.

Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy head. He could read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of his own inventions.

Never, never, never, on cross-examination ask a witness a question you don't already know the answer to.

I was not so sure, but Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that__ why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off and find some to play with.

Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit __m, but remember it__ a sin to kill a mockingbird.

If a man says to you, "This is the truth," and you believe him, and you discover what he says is not the truth, you are disappointed and you make sure you will not be caught out by him again. But a man who has lived by the truth-and you have believed in what he has lived-he does not leave you merely wary when he fails you, he leaves you with nothing.

If a man says to you, "This is the truth," and you believe him, and you discover what he says is not the truth, you are disappointed and you make sure you will not be caught by him again. But a man who has lived the truth--and you have believed in what he has lived--he does not leave you merely wary when he fails you, he leaves you with nothing.

We're paying the highest tribute you can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It's that simple.

Everybody__ gotta learn, nobody__ born knowing.

When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion faster than adults, and evasion simply muddles 'em.

Mockingbirds don__ do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don__ eat up people__ gardens, don__ nest in corncribs, they don__ do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That__ why it__ a sin to kill a mockingbird.

Best way to clear the air is to have it all out in the open.

So far nothing in your life has interfered with your reasoning process.

I just know Maycomb. I'm not in the least sensitive about it, but good Lord, I'm certainly aware of it.

She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance, but I cannot pity her: she is white. She knew full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking, she persisted in breaking it. She persisted, and her subsequent reaction is something that all of us have known at one time or another. She did something every child has done-she tried to put the evidence of her offense away from her. But in this case she was no child hiding stolen contraband: she struck out at her victim-of necessity she must put him away from her-he must be removed from her presence, from this world. She must destroy the evidence of her offense.

It had never fully occurred to Jean Louise that she was a girl: her life had been one of reckless, pummeling activity; fighting, football, climbing, keeping up with Jem, and besting anyone her own age in any contest requiring physical prowess.

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.