I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.

The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.

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

There's just some kind of men you have to shoot before you can say hidy to 'em. Even then, they ain't worth the bullet it takes to shoot 'em.

I was not so sure, but Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that’s why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off and find some to play with.

Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.

When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness’ sake. But don’t make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles ‘em. No... you had the right answer this afternoon, but the wrong reasons. Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they’re not attracting attention with it. Hotheadedness isn’t.