There are so many memorable quotes through out this novel, I could not only write a few. Each are equally as thought provoking as the others...Enjoy and read till the end, maybe you will learn something... (In order of page number)
"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, you can look down the street and see the results." (Miss Maudie, 50)
"The things that happen to people we never really know. What happens in houses behind closed doors, what secrets-" (Miss Maudie, 50)
"'The
world's endin', Atticus! Please do something-'
I dragged him to the window and pointed.
'No it's not,' he said. 'It's snowing.'" (Scout, 68-69)
"'...a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human'" (Atticus, 160)
"'What did your father see in the window, the crime of rape or the best defense to it?'" (Atticus, 190)
"Atticus sometimes said that one way to tell whether a witness was lying or telling the truth was to listen rather than watch..." (195)
"'One more thing, gentlemen, before I quit. Thomas Jefferson once said that all men are created equal, a phrase that the Yankees and the distaff side of the Executive branch in Washington are fond of hurling at us. There is a tendency in this year of grace, 1935, for certain people to use this phrase out of context, to satisfy all conditions. The most ridiculous example I can think of is that the people who run public education promote the stupid and idle along with the industrious- because all men are created equal, educators will gravely tell you, the children left behind suffer terrible feelings of inferiority. We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe- some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they're born with it, some men make more money than others- some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men.
'But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal- there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest J.P. court in the land, or this honorable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in courts all men are created equal.
'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. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up. I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this defendant to his family. In the name of God, do your duty.'" (Atticus, 207-208)
"'I don't know, but they did it. They've done it before and they did it tonight and they'll do it again and when they do it- seems that only children weep. Good night.'" (Atticus, 215)
"'I simply want to tell you that there are some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father's one of them.'" (Miss Maudie, 218)
"'You got it backwards, Dill,' said Jem. 'Clowns are sad, it's folks that laugh at them.'" (Jem, 219)
"'There's something in our world that makes men lose their heads- they couldn't be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, they white man always wins. They're ugly, but those are the facts of life.'" (Atticus, 223)
"'The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom.'" (Atticus, 223)
"'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.'" (Atticus, 223)
"'I proved him a liar but John made him look like a fool.'" (Atticus, 253)
"Summer, and he watched his children's heart break." (282)
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