To Kill a Mockingbird (To Kill a Mockingbird, #1)

by Harper Lee

Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

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

The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

“They don’t belong anywhere. Colored folks won’t have ’em because they’re half white; white folks won’t have ’em ’cause they’re colored, so they’re just in-betweens, don’t belong anywhere.

To Maycomb, Tom’s death was Typical. Typical of a nigger to cut and run. Typical of a nigger’s mentality to have no plan, no thought for the future, just run blind first chance he saw.

Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men’s hearts Atticus had no case.

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

“I don’t know, Henry. They contribute to every society they live in, and most of all, they are a deeply religious people. Hitler’s trying to do away with religion, so maybe he doesn’t like them for that reason.”