I shall never marry, Atticus." "Why?" "I might have children.

Mutual defiance made them alike.

He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.

Now that I was compelled to think about it, reading was something that just came to me, as learning to fasten the seat of my union suit without looking around, or achieving two bows from a snarl of shoelaces.

People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.

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.