Quotes from book

Go Set a Watchman

“Every man’s island, Jean Louise, every man’s watchman, is his conscience. There is no such thing as a collective conscious.”

“As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place he’ll look for his lessons.”

“Autumn was her happiest season.”

“Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.”

“What does a bigot do when he meets someone who challenges his opinions? He doesn’t give. He stays rigid. Doesn’t even try to listen, just lashes out.”

“[T]he time your friends need you is when they’re wrong, Jean Louise. They don’t need you when they’re right”

“Go away, the old buildings said. There is no place for you here. You are not wanted. We have secrets.”

“If you did not want much, there was plenty.”

“I was taught never to take advantage of anybody who was less fortunate than myself, whether he be less fortunate in brains, wealth, or social position; it meant anybody…”

“Don’t push her. Let her go at her own speed. Push her and every mule in the county’d be easier to live with.”

“Sometimes we have to kill a little so we can live.”

“I can't beat you, I can't join you.”

“Don’t you study about other folks’s business till you take care of your own.”

“A man can condemn his enemies, but it’s wiser to know them.”

“I need a watchman to tell me this is what a man says but this is what he means, to draw a line down the middle and say here is this justice and there is that justice and make me understand the difference.”

“But a man who has lived by truth—and you have believed in what he has lived—he does not leave you merely wary when he fails you, he leaves you with nothing. I think that is why I’m nearly out of my mind.”

“Remember this also: it’s always easy to look back and see what we were, yesterday, ten years ago. It is hard to see what we are. If you can master that trick, you’ll get along.”

“I guess it’s like an airplane: they’re the drag and we’re the thrust, together we make the thing fly. Too much of us and we’re nose-heavy, too much of them and we’re tail-heavy—it’s a matter of balance.”