“Most people are real nice, when you finally see them.”
Pt. 2, ch. 31
Jean Louise (Scout) Finch & Atticus Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: "An' they chased him 'n' never could catch him 'cause they didn't know what he looked like, an' Atticus, when they finally saw him, why he hadn't done any of those things... Atticus, he was real nice..."
"Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them."
“People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.”
Pt. 1, ch. 10
Miss Maudie
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Pt. 1, ch. 10
Atticus Finch & Maudie Atkinson
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: "I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.
“Your father's right," she said. "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."
“Atticus said naming people after Confederate generals made slow steady drinkers.”
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird
“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.”
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird
Pt. 2, ch. 23
Atticus Finch
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day 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, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.
Jean Louise (Scout) Finch
Pt. 2, ch. 16
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
“People don’t like to have somebody knowing more than they do. It aggravates them.”
Pt. 2, ch. 12
Calpurnia
Variant: Folks don’t like to have somebody around knowin’ more than they do. It aggravates ‘em.
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: Folks don’t like to have somebody around knowin’ more than they do. 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.
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird
Pt. 1, ch. 9
Atticus Finch
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
On why she has done her best creative thinking while playing golf, as quoted in Time (12 May 1980)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)