Memorable Quotes from

To Kill a Mockingbird 

 

Atticus Finch: You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... 'til you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.

Atticus Finch: 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.

Reverend Sykes: Jean Louise. Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passing.

Jem: Atticus says cheating a black man is ten times worse than cheating a white.

Sheriff Tate: I may not be much Mr. Finch, but I'm still sheriff of Macomb County. And Bob Ewell fell on his knife. Good night sir.

Jem: There goes the meanest man that ever took a breath of life.
Dill Harris: Why is he the meanest man?
Jem: Well, for one thing, he has a boy named Boo that he keeps chained to a bed in the house over yonder. Boo only comes out at night when you're asleep and it's pitch-dark. When you wake up at night, you can hear him. Once I heard him scratchin' on our screen door, but he was gone by the time Atticus got there.
Dill Harris: I wonder what he does in there? I wonder what he looks like?
Jem: Well, judgin' from his tracks, he's about six and a half feet tall. He eats raw squirrels and all the cats he can catch. There's a long, jagged scar that runs all the way across his face. His teeth are yella and rotten. His eyes are popped. And he drools most of the time.

Jean Louise "Scout" Finch: May I see your watch? "To Atticus, My Beloved Husband." Atticus, Jem says this watch is gonna belong to him some day.
Atticus Finch: That's right.
Jean Louise "Scout" Finch: Why?
Atticus Finch: Well, it's customary for the boy to have his father's watch.
Jean Louise "Scout" Finch: What are you gonna give me?
Atticus Finch: Well, I don't know that I have much else of value that belongs to me. But there's a pearl necklace. There's a ring that belonged to your mother. And I put them away and they're to be yours.

Atticus Finch: 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, I reckon because mockingbirds don't do anything but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat people's gardens, don't nest in the corncrib, they don't do one thing but just sing their hearts out for us.

Tom Robinson: Looks like she didn't have nobody to help her. I felt right sorry for her. She seemed...
Lawyer: You felt sorry for her? A white woman? You felt sorry for her?