Mockingbird Quotes - Page 2

• It's not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike--in the second place, folks don't like to have somebody around knowin' more than they do.

  Harper Lee

  Folks, Knows, Second Place

  Harper Lee (1960). “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD”

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Harper Lee

  Gun, Blue, Tin Cans

  "Fictional character: Atticus Finch". "To Kill a Mockingbird", www.imdb.com. 1962.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• There's a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep 'em all away from you. That's never possible.

  Harper Lee

  Son, Ugly Things, Wish

  Horton Foote, Harper Lee (1964). “The screenplay of To kill a mockingbird”

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• God must've had a blast. painting the stripes on the zebra, hanging the stars in the sky, putting the gold in the sunset. What creativity!
  Stretching the neck of the giraffe, putting the flutter in the mockingbird's wings, planting the giggle in the hyena. And then, as a finale to a brilliant performance, He made a human who had the unique honour to bear the stamp, In His Image.

  Max Lucado

  Stars, Zebras, Sunset

  144 Copy quote

• With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable.

  Harper Lee

  Tkam, Routine, Unbearable

  Harper Lee (1960). “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Somewhere, I had received the impression that Fine Folks were people who did the best they could with the sense they had, but Aunt Alexandra was of the opinion, obliquely expressed, that the longer a family had been squatting on one patch of land the finer it was.

  Harper Lee

  Aunt, Land, People

  Harper Lee (1960). “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Best way to clear the air is to have it all out in the open.

  Harper Lee

  Air, Way, Clear

  "To Kill a Mockingbird". Book by Harper Lee, www.huffingtonpost.com. 1960.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Try fighting with your head for a change... it's a good one, even if it does resist learning.

  Harper Lee

  Fighting, Trying, Doe

  Harper Lee (1960). “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn’t hurt you.

  Harper Lee

  Hurt, Thinking, Names

  Harper Lee (1960). “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think I'll be a clown when I get grown,' said Dill. Jem and I stopped in our tracks. Yes sir, a clown,' he said. 'There ain't one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.' You got it backwards, Dill,' said Jem. 'Clowns are sad, it's folks that laugh at them.' Well I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.

  Harper Lee

  Thinking, Tkam, Track

  Harper Lee (2014). “To Kill A Mockingbird”, p.176, Random House

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• A mockingbird has moved into our neighborhood. It perches atop a telephone pole behind our backyard. Every morning it is the first thing I hear. It is impossible to be unhappy when listening to a mockingbird. So stuffed with songs it is, it can't seem to make up it's mind which to sing first, so it sings them all, a dozen different songs at once, in a dozen different voices. On and on it sings without a pause, so peppy, even frantic, as if its voice alone is keeping the world awake.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Song, Morning, Voice

  Jerry Spinelli (2012). “The Stargirl Collection”, p.185, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Harper Lee

  Courage, Real, Gun

  Harper Lee (1960). “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD”

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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, he is trash.

  Harper Lee

  Respect, Black And White, Men

  To Kill a Mockingbird ch. 23 (1960)

  42 Copy quote

  Show source

• I've been thinking... Maybe you're a mockingbird... Mockingbirds imitate the songs of other birds... No, I've never heard of any copyright problems.

  Charles M. Schulz

  Song, Thinking, Bird

  5 Copy quote

• Oh Mockingbird have you ever heard words that I’ve never heard

  Bob Marley

  Heard

  10 Copy quote

• Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand.

  Harper Lee

  Tkam, People, Mad

  Harper Lee (1970). “To Kill a Mockingbird”, p.20, Dramatic Publishing

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I remember reading To Kill A Mockingbird when I was 12. What I liked about it is that it was all seen through a child's eyes. It was Harper Lee going back and writing it from the way a child would see those things.

  Mara Wilson

  Children, Reading, Eye

  Source: www.avclub.com

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• In White Summer, Joelle Biele exhibits a Roethke-like affinity with nature and natures creatures. At times a miniaturist, Biele constructs exquisite addresses to a heron, cicada, spider, catalpa tree, mockingbird, snail, cormorant, and others. These pitch-perfect poems are written with a delicate, meticulous attention to craft and music. Like the joy she takes in her subjects, this collection is a joy to read.

  Elizabeth Spires

  Summer, White, Perfect

  7 Copy quote

• You can choose your friends, but you sho' can't choose your family.

  Harper Lee

  Tkam, Jem And Scout, Most Powerful

  "To Kill a Mockingbird". Book by Harper Lee, July 11, 1960.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think I'll be a clown when I get grown.... There ain't one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.

  Harper Lee

  Thinking, Tkam, Laughing

  Harper Lee (1960). “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD”

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• I never expected any sort of success with 'Mockingbird'... I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement.

  Harper Lee

  Encouragement, Giving, Enough

  "Mockingbird author steps out of shadows" by Paul Harris, www.theguardian.com. February 4, 2006.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't think I'll ever lose the feeling that I had when I read 'To Kill a Mockingbird' - Harper Lee was going back into her childhood. I grew up in a real small town - Lee's was in the South, mine the Northwest - but small towns have a lot in common. There was such a revelation in knowing that a story could be told like that.

  Chris Crutcher

  Real, Thinking, Knowing

  Interview with Jennifer M. Brown, www.publishersweekly.com. Mar 12, 2001.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Naturally, you don't sit down in "white hot inspiration" and write with a burning flame in front of you. But since I knew I could never be happy being anything but a writer, and Mockingbird put itself together for me so accommodatingly, I kept at it because I knew it had to be my first novel, for better or for worse.

  Harper Lee

  Inspiration, Writing, Flames

  "Harper Lee, 'To Kill a Mockingbird' author, dead at 89" by Todd Leopold, www.cnn.com. February 19, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Harper Lee

  Home, Fighting, Yankees

  Harper Lee (1960). “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Like Scout and her father in To Kill a Mockingbird, my father would pull me onto his lap each night in our four-room apartment and read aloud.

  Jim Trelease

  Father, Night, Lap

  12 Copy quote