Harper Lee

“He could read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of his own inventions. He could add and subtract faster than lightning, but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept, waiting to be gathered like morning lilies. He was slowly talking himself to sleep and taking me with him, but in the quietness of his foggy island there rose the faded image of gray house with sad brown doors.”

“There's some folks who don't eat like us," she whispered fiercely, "but you ain't called on to contradict 'em at the table when they don't. That boy's yo' comp'ny and if he wants to eat up the table cloth you let him, you hear?”

“Miss Maudie’s hand closed tightly on mine, and I said nothing. Its warmth was enough.”

“Ladies pick funny things to be proud of.”

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

“You can't really get to know a person until you get in their shoes and walk around in them.”

“Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough.”

“Lawyers, I suppose were once children, too”

“You see they could never, never understand that I live like I do because that's the way I want to live.”

“As you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to others, and don't think you are the most important being on earth. Rich or poor, you then can look anyone in the eye and say, 'I'm probably no better than you, but I'm certainly your equal.”

“Finders were keepers unless title was proven.”

“I said I would like it very much, which was a lie, but one must lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one can't do anything about them.”

“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.”

“Keberanian tidak selalu identik dengan lelaki bersenapan. Keberanian (sejati) adalah saat kau tahu kau akan kalah sebelum memulai, tetapi kau tetap memulai dan merampungkannya, apa pun yang terjadi. Kau jarang menang, tetapi kadang-kadang kau bisa menang.”

“Mut heißt: von vornherein wissen, dass man geschlagen ist, und trotzdem den Kampf - ganz gleich, um was es geht - aufnehmen und ihn durchstehen.Man gewinnt selten, aber zuweilen gelingt es.”

“Things are never as bad as they seem.”

“They're ugly, but those are the facts of life.”

“Let the dead bury the dead.”

“Asked him and he said he wasn't. Besides, nothin's real scary except on books.”

“Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.”

“Well, coming out of the courthouse that night Miss Gates was-she goin' down the steps in front of us, you musta not seen her- she was talking with Miss Stephen Crawford. I heard her say it's time somebody taught 'em a lesson, they were gettin' way above themselves, 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-”

“Atticus, you must be wrong." "How's that?" "Well, most folks seem to think they're right and you're wrong. . ." "They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions," said Atticus, "but 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.”

“but sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down...”

“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.”

“The cold water embraced hime like no woman ever could”

“Mutual defiance made them alike.”

“Nothing is more deadly than a deserted, waiting street.”

“I shall never marry, Atticus.""Why?""I might have children.”

“Jem was a born hero.”

“Don't you oh well me,sir," Miss Maudie replied, recognizing Jem's fatalistic noises, "you are not old enough to appreciate what I said.”

“Să fii curajos înseamnă să ştii că eşti pierdut înainte de a întreprinde ceva.”

“I remember when my daddy gave me that gun. He told me that I should never point it at anything in the house; and that he'd rather I'd shoot at tin cans in the backyard. But he said that sooner or later he supposed the temptation to go after birds would be too much, and that I could shoot all the blue jays I wanted - if I could hit 'em; but to remember it was a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

“Well, in the first place, you stopped to gimme a chance to tell you my side of it- you just lit right into me. When Jem an' I fuss Atticus doesn't ever listen to just Jem's side of it, he hears mine too”

“Scout- .. Uncle Jack?"Uncle Jack- "Ma'am?"Scout- "What's a whore-lady?”

“Volevo che tu imparassi una cosa da lei: volevo che tu vedessi che cosa è il vero coraggio, tu che credi che sia rappresentato da un uomo col fucile in mano. Aver coraggio significa sapere di essere sconfitti prima ancora di cominciare, e cominciare egualmente e arrivare fino in fondo, qualsiasi cosa succeda. È raro vincere, in questi casi, ma qualche volta si vince.”

“I had never thought about it, but summer was Dill by the fishpool smoking string, Dill's eyes alive with complicated plans to make Boo Radley emerge; summer was the swiftness with which Dill would reach up and kiss me when Jem was not looking, the longings we sometimes felt each other feel. With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable”

“Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches, when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn't supposed to do things that required pants. Aunt Alexandra's vision of my deportment involved playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-A-Pearl necklace she gave me when I was born; furthermore, I should be a ray of sunshine in my father's life. I suggested that one could be a ray of sunshine in pants as well, but Aunty said that one had to behave like a sunbeam, that I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year.”

“An' they chased him 'n' never could catch him 'cause they didn't know what he looked like, an' Atticus, when they finally saw him, why he hadn't done any of those thing... Atticus, he was real nice..""Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.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.”

“If this thing's hushed up it'll be a simple denial to Jem of the way I've tried to raise him. Sometimes I think I'm a total failure as a parent, but I'm all they've got. Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I've tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.. if I connived at something like this, frankly I couldn't meet his eye, and the day I can't do that I'll know I've lost him. I don't want to lose him and Scout, because they're all I've got.”

“Cry about the simple hell people give other people- without even thinking. Cry about the hell white people give colored folks, without even stopping to think that they're people too.”

“I don't care one speck. It ain't right, somehow it ain't right to do 'em that way. Hasn't anybody got any business talkin' like that- it just makes me sick.”

“Things are always better in the morning.”

“Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

“Now that I was compelled to think about it, reading was something that just came to me, as learning to fasten the seat of my union suit without looking around, or achieving two bows from a snarl of shoelaces.”

“People don’t like to have somebody knowing more than they do. It aggravates them.”

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

“Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.”

“Thus we came to know Dill as a pocket Merlin, whose head teemed with eccentric plans, strange longings, and quaint fancies - Scout”

“He rarely gathered news; people brought it to him. It was said he made up every edition of The Maycombe Tribune out of his own head and wrote it down on the linotype.”

“summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screeneed porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat;it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape.”