“Thought you could kill my Snow-on-the-Mountain, did you? Well, Jessie says that the top's growing back out. Next time you'll know how to do it right, won't you? You'll pull it up by the roots, won't you?”

“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 didn't know how you were going to do it, but from now on I'll never worry about what'll become of you, son, you'll always have an idea.”

“Well how do you know we ain’t Negroes?”“Uncle Jack Finch says we really don’t know. He says as far as he can trace back the Finches we ain’t, but for all he knows we mighta come straight out of Ethiopia durin’ the Old Testament.”“Well if we came out durin’ the Old Testament it’s too long ago to matter.”“That’s what I thought,” said Jem, “but around here once you have a drop of Negro blood, that makes you all black.”

“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'.”

“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-”

“Do you defend niggers, Atticus?" I asked him that evening."Of course I do. Don't say nigger, Scout. That's common.""'s what everybody at school says.""From now on it'll be everybody less one--""Well if you don't want me to grow up talkin' that way, why do you send me to school?”