Quotes from To Kill a Mockingbird

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“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. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
- Atticus Finch”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“Atticus, he was real nice."

"Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“Atticus said to Jem one day, "I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. "Your father’s right," she said. "Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it—whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“You just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don't you let 'em get your goat. Try fightin' with your head for a change.
-Atticus Finch”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn’t hurt you.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“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 faster than adults, and evasion simply muddles 'em.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time. It's because he wants to stay inside.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“We're paying the highest tribute you can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It's that simple.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year.
Scout”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“You can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family, an' they're still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge 'em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don't.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“Things are always better in the morning.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“There are just some kind of men who-who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

“It's not time to worry yet”
― Harper Lee, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird

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“Death isn't enough. It doesn't remove the stain. But a slap, a whiplash, square on the face, does. Because a man's face is as sacred as his mother or his wife.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa, quote from The War of the End of the World

“There are still stars which move in ordered and beautiful rhythm. There are still people in this world who keep promises. Even little ones, like your cooking stew over your Bunsen burner. You may be in the middle of an experiment, but you still remember to feed your family. That’s enough to keep my heart optimistic, no matter how pessimistic my mind. And you and I have good enough minds to know how very limited and finite they really are. The naked intellect is an extraordinarily inaccurate instrument.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“Shut up," I hissed. Ticked that he was taller than me, I stepped up onto a nearby coffee table. "I'm not in a cage anymore," I said, keeping enough presence of mind not to poke him in the chest with a finger. His face went startled, then cloric. "The only thing between your head and my foot becoming real close and personal right now is my questionable professionalism. And if you ever threaten me again, I'll slam you halfway across the room before you can say number-two pencil. Got it, you tall freak of nature?”
― Kim Harrison, quote from Every Which Way But Dead

“It was so cold. In the monastery. Sometimes the wind came from the sea with ice in it... It could freeze the skin off your face. Once the snow was so deep we couldn't get out of the doors to the woodshed. A monk jumped from a window. He sank into a drift and took a long time to get up. That night, they made me sleep next to the stove. I was small, thin, like a piece of birch bark. But then the Stove went out.
Father Bernard took me into his cell... It was he who first gave me chalk and paper. He was so old his eyes his eyes looked as if he was crying. But he was never sad. In winter he had fewer blankets than the others. He said he didn't need them because God warmed him.
(...)
But even Father Bernard was cold that night. He laid me down on the bed next to him, wrapped me in an animal skin, then in his own arms. He told me stories about Jesus. How His love could wake the dead and how with Him in one's heart one could heat the world... When I woke it was light. The snow had stopped. I was warm. But he was cold. I gave him the skin but his body was stiff. I didn't know what to do. I got out a piece of paper from his chest under the bed and drew him, lying there. His face had a smile on it. I knew that God had been there when he died. That now He was in me, and because of Father Bernard I would be warm forever.”
― Sarah Dunant, quote from The Birth of Venus

“الاحتمالات مثل السرطان، كلما فكرت فيها تكاثرت بشكل أكبر ولا يكون هناك سبيل لإيقافها”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from Dance Dance Dance

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

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