If To Kill A Mockingbird is not the penultimate “quotable book”, I’m not sure what is!

When I first heard the news that there was a new Harper Lee book coming out this summer, I promised myself I would re-read To Kill A Mockingbird. I first read it in high school, but literally remembered nothing about it…not even whether or not I liked it. And, I wondered what I would think of this classic at this point in my life.

Well, I loved it! I highlighted like crazy (hence, my reason for focusing on quotes in this post!) and reveled in Lee’s stunning portrayal of life in a time when children played outside all day and walked home from school alone. The one thing I did remember from my first read was that a big focus was on the trial…what I didn’t remember as well is that the trial is more of a background element until the second half of the book. The tension builds slowly, which allows the reader to get a good sense of the characters and life at that time.

There are so many life lessons in this one…many coming from the mouth of Atticus, who is quite possibly the most good and pure character in literature (at least in this book). And, if I included all the quotes I loved, this post would be a mile long. So, I’ve just scratched the surface here…

Favorite Quotes from To Kill A Mockingbird

Scout:

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.

Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that’s why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off and find some to play with.

Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn’t supposed to be doing things that required pants. Aunt Alexandra’s vision of my deportment involved playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-A-Pearl necklace she gave me when I was born; furthermore, I should be a ray of sunshine in my father’s lonely life. I suggested that one could be a ray of sunshine in pants just as well […].

Atticus:

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.

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

It’s different this time, he said. 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.

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.

[…] 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.

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 and you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.

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.

Miss Maudie:

Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up other 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.

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.

Whether Maycomb knows it or not, we’re paying the highest tribute we can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It’s that simple.

Now, it’s time to read Go Set A Watchman!