Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they're not attracting attention with it.

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.

I think I'll be a clown when I get grown,' said Dill. Jem and I stopped in our tracks. Yes sir, a clown,' he said. 'There ain't one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.' You got it backwards, Dill,' said Jem. 'Clowns are sad, it's folks that laugh at them.' Well I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.

Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself.

Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it. Somehow, it was hotter then. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon after their three o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting from sweating and sweet talcum. The day was twenty-four hours long, but it seemed longer. There's no hurry, for there's nowhere to go and nothing to buy... and no money to buy it with.

...in other words, all I want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama Interview - March 1964

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.