I suppose she chose me because she knew my name; as I read the alphabet a faint line appeared between her eyebrows, and after making me read most of My First Reader and the stock-market quotations from The Mobile Register aloud, she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste. Miss Caroline told me to tell my father not to teach me any more, it would interfere with my reading.

Ladies pick funny things to be proud of.

Don't you study about other folks's business till you take care of your own.

You can pet him, Mr. Arthur. He's asleep.

That proves something- that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human.

I came to the conclusion that people were just peculiar, I withdrew from them, and never thought about them until I was forced to.

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.