“By the Lady’s never-sucked teats!”“Elas Sil!”“Oh shut up! I’m a woman, I can curse about things like that. Wait, it’s not as dark up ahead. Come on, and hasn’t that baby of yours been asleep a long time? You sure it’s not dead?”“Wel, it peed on me halfway down that last corridor, and last I looked it was smiling.”“Huh. It ever amazes me women get talked into motherhood.”

“You think about that,” Miss Maudie was saying. “It was no accident. I was sittin‘ there on the porch last night, waiting. I waited and waited to see you all come down the sidewalk, and as I waited I thought, Atticus Finch won’t win, he can’t win, but he’s the only man in these parts who can keep a jury out so long in a case like that. And I thought to myself, well, we’re making a step—it’s just a baby-step, but it’s a step.” “‘t’s all right to talk like that—can’t any Christian judges an’ lawyers make up for heathen juries,” Jem muttered.”

“I know you white girls are all touchy feely, but, could you not? I feel like I’m a felon on death row every time you touch me. It’s like, damn, can I get a last meal at least before getting hooked up to the electric machine?”

“That time of day when the sun hasn’t come up yet, but you can already feel it coming. It’s an elusive warmth, like a subtle promise whispered in your ear and you can go on with your day knowing you’ve been given another chance to get it right.”

“Hey, it’s-!”“Who? Oh. Oh.”“Shut up.”“I haven’t said anything yet!”“Don’t.”“How can I shut up if I haven’t said anything?”“I know you. You’ve got a monologue coming up.”

“It’s really difficult to talk about dead people, but it’s even harder to talk about dead young women. It’s because from the time they die, they’ll be young forever. On the other hand, for us, the survivors, every year, every month, every day, we get older.Sometimes, I feel like I can feel myself aging from one hour to the next. It’s a terrible thing, but that’s reality.”