I know now what he was trying to do, but Atticus was only a man. It takes a woman to do that kind of work.

You've really got to start hitting the books because it's no joke out here.

People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.

Don’t talk like that, Dill,” said Aunt Alexandra. “It’s not becoming to a child. It’s – cynical.” “I ain’t cynical, Miss Alexandra. Tellin’ the truth’s not cynical, is it?” “The way you tell it, it is.

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.

Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.

The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for that.