TKAM Quotes

"Calpurnia 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"

S kitchen girl

"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."

S inside

As I made my way home, I thought Jem and I would get grown but there wasn't much left for us to learn, except possibly algebra."

S learn

"sinful man who had mixed children and didn't care who knew it"

S sinful

"caste system in Maycomb...repeated in each generation and refined by time"

S system Maycomb

"a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up"

A sound

"Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

A sin

"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 quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles 'em."

A answer

"the evil assumption- that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women"

A assumption

"Serving on a jury forces a man to make up his mind and declare himself about something. Men don't like to do that."

A declare

"ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody's favoring Negroes over and above themselves" "common, ugly term to label somebody."

A explains racism to S

"There's nothing more sickening to me than a low-grade white man who'll take advantage of a Negro's ignorance"

A ignorance

"Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win,"

A licked

"You aren't really a nigg*-lover, then, are you?" "I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody "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."

A n-lover

" I destroyed his last shred of credibility at that trial, if he had any to begin with....He had to take it out on somebody and I'd rather it be me than that houseful of children out there. You understand?"

A on Mr E spitting

"Son, I have no doubt that you've been annoyed by your contemporaries about me lawing for nigg**s, as you say, but to do something like this to a sick old lady is inexcusable. "

A on Mrs Dubose

"They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions," said Atticus, "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."

A opinions

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view--until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

A pov

"Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson's skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, and the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women—black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire."

A racism court

"She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable: she kissed a black man. Not an old Uncle, but a strong young Negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards."

A tempt

"As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life...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."

A trash

"For one thing, Miss Maudie can't serve on a jury because she's a woman" " to protect our frail ladies from sordid cases like Tom's."

A women

"In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins. They're ugly, but those are the facts of life."

A word

"a quiet, respectable, humble Negro"

A's description of T

"Don't talk like that, Dill," said Aunt Alexandra. "It's not becoming to a child. It's—cynical." "I ain't cynical, Miss Alexandra. Tellin' the truth's not cynical, is it?"

Aunt A, Dill

"Hush your mouth! Don't matter who they are, anybody sets foot in this house's yo' comp'ny, and don't you let me catch you remarkin' on their ways like you was so high and mighty!"

C on Cunninghams

"It aggravates 'em. You're not gonna change any of them by talkin' right, they've got to want to learn themselves, and when they don't want to learn there's nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language."

C talk

"That's what I thought," said Jem, "but around here once you have a drop of Negro blood, that makes you all black."

J blood

"I seen that black nigg** yonder ruttin' on my Mayella!"

Mr E

"because you're children and you can understand it"

Mr Raymond children

"Atticus says cheatin' a coloured man is ten times worse than cheatin' a white man" "Says it's the worst thing you can do"

S cheat

"Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed."

S dead man