"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."

"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."

"People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for."

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

"Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts."

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

"Atticus, he was real nice." "Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them."

"People in their right minds never take pride in their talents."

"It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived."

"With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable."

"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 fightin' with your head for a change. -Atticus Finch"

"Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what."

"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."

"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."

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

"I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year. Scout"

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

"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."

"There are just some kind of men who-who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results."

"It's not time to worry yet"

"Things are always better in the morning."

"Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin'."

"Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience."

"They've done it before and they'll do it again and when they do it -- seems that only the children weep. Good night."

"Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself...It's a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent."

"Ladies in bunches always filled me with vague apprehension and a firm desire to be elsewhere."

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

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

"As a reader I loathe introductions...Introductions inhibit pleasure, they kill the joy of anticipation, they frustrate curiosity."

"That boy is your company. And if he wants to eat up that tablecloth, you let him, you hear?"

"There are some men in this world who are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father's one of them."

"Things are never as bad as they seem."

"There's a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep 'em all away from you. That's never possible."

"Are you proud of yourself tonight that you have insulted a total stranger whose circumstances you know nothing about?"

"She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl."

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

"Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. It's knowing you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."

"Try fighting with your head for a change... it's a good one, even if it does resist learning."

"Every man’s island, Jean Louise, every man’s watchman, is his conscience. There is no such thing as a collective conscious."

"I don't want to hear any words like that while I'm here. Scout, you'll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to grow up to be a lady, don't you?' I said not particularly."

"I'm little but I'm old."

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—” “Sir?” “—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

"Dill?" Mm?" Why do you reckon Boo Radleys never run off?" Dill sighed a long sigh and turned away from me. Maybe he doesn't have anywhere to run off to"

"[T]he time your friends need you is when they’re wrong, Jean Louise. They don’t need you when they’re right"

"See there?" Jem was scowling triumphantly. "Nothin' to it. I swear, Scout, sometimes you act so much like a girl its mortifyin"

"He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning."

"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."

"A man can condemn his enemies, but it’s wiser to know them."

"Some negroes lie, some are immoral, some negro men are not be trusted around women - black and white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men."

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