I do my best to love everybody

Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself.

Characters make their own plot. The dimensions of the characters determine the action of the novel.

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.

I say guilt, gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society.

A man can condemn his enemies, but it's wiser to know them.

A mob's always made up of people, no matter what. Mr. Cunningham was part of a mob last night, but he was still a man. Every mob in every little Southern town is always made up of people you know--doesn't say much for them, does it?