Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When stalking one’s prey, it is best to take one’s time. Say nothing, and as sure as eggs he will become curious and emerge.
My daddy had a pocket watch that he wore at all times in court. I gave Greg the watch and showed him how Daddy used to use it.
See there?" Jem was scowling triumphantly. "Nothin' to it. I swear, Scout, sometimes you act so much like a girl its mortifyin
As I made my way home, I thought Jem and I would get grown but there wasn't much else for us to learn, except possibly algebra.
Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand.
Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they're not attracting attention with it.
I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.
I never expected any sort of success with 'Mockingbird'... I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement.
As a reader I loathe introductions...Introductions inhibit pleasure, they kill the joy of anticipation, they frustrate curiosity.
I came to the conclusion that people were just peculiar, I withdrew from them, and never thought about them until I was forced to.
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.
Now...in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, ipods and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books.
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.
Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in.
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.
My book had a universal theme. It's not a "racial" novel. It portrays an aspect of civilization, not necessarily Southern civilization.
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.
In Maycomb, if one went for a walk with no definite purpose in mind, it was correct to believe one's mind incapable of definite purpose.
I didn't know how you were going to do it, but from now on I'll never worry about what'll become of you, son, you'll always have an idea.
Again, as I had often met it in my own church, I was confronted with the Impurity of Women doctrine that seemed to preoccupy all clergymen.
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.
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.
Serving on a jury forces a man to make up his mind and declare himself about something. Men don't like to do that. Sometimes it's unpleasant.
She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl.
Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.
I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system - that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality.
She knew full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking, she persisted in breaking it.
It's not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike--in the second place, folks don't like to have somebody around knowin' more than they do.
I would like to be the chronicler of something that I think is going down the drain very swiftly, and that is small-town, middle-class southern life.
Being Southerners, it was a source of shame to some members of the family that we had no recorded ancestors on either side of the Battle of Hastings.
She's an old lady and she's ill. You just hold your head high and be a gentleman. Whatever she says to you, it's your job not to let her make you mad.
Dill?" Mm?" Why do you reckon Boo Radleys never run off?" Dill sighed a long sigh and turned away from me. Maybe he doesn't have anywhere to run off to
Writing is something you'll never learn in any university or at any school. It's something that is within you, and if it isn't there, nothing can put it there.
I say guilt, gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society.
About your writing with you left hand, are you ambidextrous, Mr. Ewell?" "I most positively am not, I can use one hand good as the other. One hand good as the other.
Dill said striking a match under a turtle was hateful. “How do you know a match don't hurt him?” “Turtles can't feel, stupid,” said Jem. “Where you ever a turtle, huh?
I think I'll be a clown when I get grown.... 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 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 fighting with your head for a change...
It was something I never expected to - I never expected the book would sell in the first place. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers.
My objectives are very limited. I want to do the best I can with the talent God gave me. I hope to goodness that every novel I do gets better and better, not worse and worse.
Jen and I were accustomed to our father's last-will-and-testament diction, and were at times free to interrupt Atticus for a translation when it was beyond our understanding.
This time we aren't fighting the Yankees, we're fighting our friends. But remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they're still our friends and this is still our home.
Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself...It's a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent.
Well, they're Southern people, and if they know you are working at home they think nothing of walking right in for coffee. But they wouldn't dream of interrupting you at golf.
The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box.
Scout, I´m telling you for the last time, shut your trap or go home - I declare to the Lord you´re gettin´ more like a girl every day!” With that, I had no option but to join them.
It is all fiction, only autobiographical in the sense it is about a small town. None of the incidents in the book ever happened to me as a child. I didn't have an eventful childhood.
Writing is a process of self-discipline you must learn before you can call yourself a writer. There are people who write, but I think they're quite different from people who must write.
Some negroes lie, some are immoral, some negro men are not be trusted around women - black and white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.
Yeah, that's all," said Dill. "He'll probably come out after you when he sees you in the yard, then Scout'n' me'll jump on him and hold him down till we can tell him we ain't gonna hurt him.