“I suggested that one could be a ray ofsunshine in pants just as well, but Aunty said that one had to behave like asunbeam, that I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year.”

“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.”

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

“I liked this.  I liked this a lot.  Memaw said a boy would woo me.  I had just been wooed in one evening’s conversation.  If my hunch was right, he seemed to be wooed by me as well. He wasn’t even blind. This could be good.”

“Had that poor Reilly kook really been proud of Levy Pants? He had always said that he was. That was one good sign of his insanity.”

“The seeds of who I am now had been planted. "Fools aren't born," I wrote in my notebook one day during ethics class. "They are watered and grown like weeds by institutions such as Christianity."”