To Kill a Mockingbird quotes

Atticus Finch: Good Lord, I must be losin' 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 Tate: Mr. Finch... do you think Jem killed Bob Ewell? Is that what you think? Your boy never stabbed anyone.
Sheriff 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, not to hush it up. Well, you know what'll happen then. All the ladies in Maycomb, includin' my wife, will be knockin' on his door bringin' angel food cakes. To my way of thinkin', takin' the one man who done you and this town a big service, and draggin' 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.

Sheriff Heck Tate, Sheriff Heck Tate

Let's go down to the courthouse and see the room that they locked Boo up in. My aunt says it's bat-infested, and he nearly died from the mildew. Come on. I bet they got chains and instruments of torture down there.

Dill Harris

Atticus Finch: I remember when my daddy gave me that gun. He told me that I should never point it at anything in the house; and that he'd rather I'd shoot at tin cans in the backyard. But he said that sooner or later he supposed the temptation to go after birds would be too much, and that I could shoot all the blue jays I wanted - if I could hit 'em; but to remember it was a sin to kill a mockingbird.
Jem: Why?
Atticus Finch: Well, I reckon because mockingbirds don't do anything but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat people's gardens, don't nest in the corncrib, they don't do one thing but just sing their hearts out for us.

Atticus Finch