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

Video

About the author

Popular quotes

“The people who are the best in the world specialize at getting really good at the questions they don't know.”
― Seth Godin, quote from The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)

“I'm alive but I have no life. I'm alive but also dead. I'm dead and alive.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Dead and Alive

“Most people he knew, his wife included, wouldn't make it through an hour on the promise of four sentences. But Frankie Bard was like a camel. She could hold her words for days--as long as she could watch the goings-on.”
― Sarah Blake, quote from The Postmistress

“We should always be grateful for the faults in our partner because if they didn't have those faults from the start, they would have been able to marry someone much better than us”
― Ajahn Brahm, quote from Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“Never, ever allow yourself to feel. Feelings kill.”
― Malorie Blackman, quote from Knife Edge

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

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.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.