To Kill a Mockingbird 1962 quotes

Atticus Finch

...you'll see white men cheat black men everyday 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 that white man is Trash!

Aunt Stephanie Crawford

There's a maniac lives there and he's dangerous...I was standing in my yard one day when his Mama come out yelling, 'He's killin' us all.' Turned out that Boo was sitting in the living room cutting up the paper for his scrapbook, and when his daddy come by, he reached over with his scissors, stabbed him in his leg, pulled them out, and went right on cutting the paper. They wanted to send him to an asylum, but his daddy said no Radley was going to any asylum. So they locked him up in the basement of the courthouse till he nearly died of the damp, and his daddy brought him back home. There he is to this day, sittin' over there with his scissors...Lord knows what he's doin' or thinkin'.

Bob Ewell

I'm real sorry they picked you to defend that **** that raped my Mayella. I don't know why I didn't kill him myself instead of goin' to the sheriff. That would have saved you and the sheriff and the taxpayers lots of trouble...What kind of a man are you? You got chillun of your own.

Calpurnia

That boy is your company. And if he wants to eat up that tablecloth, you let him, you hear? And if you can't act fit to eat like folks, you can just set here and eat in the kitchen.

Mayella Ewell

I was sittin' on the porch, and he come along. Uh, there's this old chifforobe in the yard, and I-I said, 'You come in here, boy, and bust up this chifforobe, and I'll give you a nickel.' So he-he come on in the yard and I go in the house to get him the nickel and I turn around, and 'fore I know it, he's on me, and I fought and hollered, but he had me around the neck, and he hit me again and again, and the next thing I knew, Papa was in the room, a-standin' over me, hollerin', 'Who done it, who done it?'

Rev. Sykes

Miss Jean Louise, stand up, your father's passin'.

Atticus

Do you know what a compromise is?

Bendin' the law?

Atticus

Uh, no. It's an agreement reached by mutual consent. Now, here's the way it works. You concede the necessity of goin' to school, we'll keep right on readin' the same every night, just as we always have. Is that a bargain?

Narrator

There just didn't seem to be anyone or anything Atticus couldn't explain. Though it wasn't a talent that would arouse the admiration of any of our friends, Jem and I had to admit he was very good at that, but that was all he was good at, we thought.

Atticus

Do you want to tell us what really happened?

Mayella

I got somethin' to say. And then I ain't gonna say no more. He took advantage of me. An' if you fine, fancy gentlemen ain't gonna do nothin' about it, then you're just a bunch of lousy, yella, stinkin' cowards, the - the whole bunch of ya, and your fancy airs don't come to nothin'. Your Ma'am'in' and your Miss Mayellarin' - it don't come to nothin', Mr. Finch, not...no.

Atticus

Good Afternoon Miss Dubose... My, you look like a picture this afternoon.

He don't say a picture of what.

Atticus

I must be losing my memory. I can't remember whether Jem is twelve or thirteen. Anyway, it'll have to come before the county court. Of course, it's a clear-cut case of self defense. I'll, uh... well, I'll run down to the office--

Sheriff Heck Tate

Mr. Finch, do you think Jem killed Bob Ewell? Is that what you think? Your boy never stabbed anyone.

Sheriff Heck Tate

Bob Ewell fell on his knife. He killed himself. There's a black man dead for no reason; now the man responsible for it is dead. Let the dead bury the dead this time, Mr. Finch. I never heard tell it was against the law for any citizen to do his utmost to prevent a crime from being committed, which is exactly what he did. But maybe you'll tell me it's my duty to tell the town all about it and not to hush it up? Well, you know what'll happen then? All the ladies in Maycomb, including my wife, will be knocking on his door bringing angel food cakes. To my way of thinking, taking the one man who's done you and this town a big service and dragging him with his shy ways into the limelight — to me, that's a sin. It's a sin, and I'm not about to have it on my head. I may not be much, Mr. Finch, but I'm still Sheriff of Maycomb County, and Bob Ewell fell on his knife. Good night, sir.

Atticus

It'll have to come before the County Court. Of course, it's a clear-cut case of self-defense.

Sheriff Tate

Mr. Finch, do you think Jem killed Bob Ewell? Is that what you think? Your boy never stabbed him.

Dill

Hey.

Jem

Hey yourself.

Dill

I'm Charles Baker Harris. I can read. I can read anything you've got. Folks call me Dill.

Jem

How old are you? Four and a half?

Dill

Going on seven.

Jem

Well no wonder then. Scout's bin readin' since she was born, and she's not even six yet. You're mighty puny for nearly seven.

Dill

I'm little but I'm old.

Gilmer

How come you're so all-fired anxious to do that woman's chores?

Tom

Looks like she didn't have nobody to help her. Like I said...

Gilmer

With Mr. Ewell and seven children on the place? You did all this choppin' and work out of sheer goodness, boy? Ha, ha. You're a mighty good fella, it seems. Did all that for not one penny.

Tom

Yes, sir. I felt right sorry for her. She seemed...

Gilmer

You felt sorry for her? A white woman? You felt sorry for her?

Jem

There goes the meanest man that ever took a breath of life.

Dill

Why is he the meanest man?

Jem

Well, for one thing, he has a boy named Boo that he keeps chained to a bed in the house over yonder...See, he lives over there. Boo only comes out at night when you're asleep and it's pitch-dark. When you wake up at night, you can hear him. Once I heard him scratchin' on our screen door, but he was gone by the time Atticus got there.

Dill

I wonder what he does in there? I wonder what he looks like?

Jem

Well, judgin' from his tracks, he's about six and a half feet tall. He eats raw squirrels and all the cats he can catch. There's a long, jagged scar that runs all the way across his face. His teeth are yella and rotten. His eyes are popped. And he drools most of the time.

Atticus, do you defend ****?

Atticus

Don't say '****,' Scout.

I didn't say it...Cecil Jacobs did. That's why I had to fight him.

Atticus

Scout, I don't want you fightin'!

I had to, Atticus, he...

Atticus

I don't care what the reasons are. I forbid you to fight. There are some things that you're not old enough to understand just yet. There's been some high talk around town to the effect that I shouldn't do much about defending this man.

If you shouldn't be defending him, then why are you doing it?

Atticus

For a number of reasons. The main one is that if I didn't, I couldn't hold my head up in town. I couldn't even tell you or Jem not to do somethin' again. You're gonna hear some ugly talk about this in school. But I want you to promise me one thing...that you won't get into fights over it, no matter what they say to you.