“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.”

Harper Lee
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“One must lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one can't do anything about them.”


“Atticus sometimes said that one way to tell whether a witness was lying or telling the truth was to listen rather than watch.”


“That's what I thought, too,' he said at last, 'when I was your age. If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time . . . it's because he wants to stay inside.”


“Naw, Jem. I think that there is just one kind of folks. Folks."Jen turned and punched his pillow. WHen he settle back his face was cloudy. He was going in to one of his declines, and I grew wary. His brows came together; his mouth became a thin line. He was silent for a while. That is what I thought, too," he said at last, "when I was your age. If there is just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go ut of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I am beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley stayed shut up in the house all this time...it's because he wants to stay inside”


“I could think of nothing else to say to her. In fact I could never think of anything to say to her, and I sat thinking of past painful conversations between us: How are you, Jean Louise? Fine, thank you ma'am, how are you? Very well, thank you; what have you been doing with yourself? Nothin'. Don't you do anything? Nome. Certainly you have friends? Yessum. Well what do you all do? Nothin'.”


“I think I'll be a clown when I get grown,' said Dill.Jem and I stopped in our tracks.Yes sir, a clown,' he said. 'There ain't one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.'You got it backwards, Dill,' said Jem. 'Clowns are sad, it's folks that laugh at them.'Well I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.”