Harper Lee

Summer was on the way; Jem and I awaited it with impatience. Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the tree house; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape; but most of all, summer was Dill.

I mean it takes a certain kind of maturity to live in the South these days.

Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.

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

I was more at home in my father's world. People like Mr. Heck Tate did not trap you with innocent questions to make fun of you; even Jem was not highly critical unless you said something stupid. Ladies seemed to live in faint horror of men, seemed unwilling to approve wholeheartedly of them. But I liked them. There was something about them, no matter how much they cussed and drank and gambled and chewed; no matter how undelectable they were, there was something about them that I instinctively liked... they weren't_"Hypocrites, Mrs. Perkins, born hypocrites," Mrs. Merriweather was saying.

But in the absence of eye-witness there's always a doubt, sometimes only the shadow of a doubt. The law says 'reasonable doubt', but I think a defendant's entitled to the shadow of doubt. There's always the possibility, no matter how improbable, that he's innocent.

Miss Gates is a nice lady, ain't she?"Why sure," said Jem. "I liked her when I was in her room."She hates Hitler a lot . . ."What's wrong with that?"Well, she went on today about how bad it was him treating the Jews like that. Jem, it's not right to persecute anybody, is it? I mean have mean thoughts about anybody, even, is it?"Gracious no, Scout. What's eatin' you?"Well, coming out of the courthouse that night Miss Gates was--- she was going' down the steps in front of us, you musta not seen her--- she was talking with Miss Stephanie Crawford. I heard her say it's time somebody time somebody taught 'em a lesson, they were gettin' way above themelves, an' the next thing they think they can do is marry us. Jem, how can you hate Hitler so bad an' then turn around and be ugly about folks right at home---

I wanted you see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.

It ain't time to worry yet. I'll let you know when.

It's not time to worry yet

I wonder how much of the day I spend just callin' after you.

(...) when a man's looking down the double barrel of a shotgun, he picks up the first weapon he can find to defend himself, be it a stone or a stick of stove wood or a citizens' council.

The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a court-room, be he any colour of the rainbow, but people have way to carrying their resentments right into a jury box.

The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a court-room, be heany colour of the rainbow, but people have way to carrying their resentments right into a jury box.

The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a court-room, be he any colour of the rainbow, but people have way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box.

When Henry handed her a cup of punch she whispered, "If you want to go on with the seniors or anything I'll be alright."Henry smiled at her. "You're my date, Scout.

We saw Uncle Jack every Christmas, and every Christmas he yelled across the street for Miss Maudie to come marry him. Miss Mauide would yell back, "Call a little louder, Jack Finch, and they'll hear you the post office, I haven't heard you yet!" Jem and I thought this a strange way to ask for a lady's hand in marriage, but then again Uncle Jack was rather strange.

Dill said striking a match under a turtle was hateful."Ain't hateful, just persuades him- 's not like you'd chunk him in the fire," Jem growled."How do you know a match don't hurt him?""Turtles can't feel , stupid," said Jem."Were you ever a turtle, huh?