Quotes from the Movie To Kill a Mockingbird

Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it. Somehow, it was hotter then. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon after their three o'clock naps. And by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting from sweating and sweet talcum. The day was twenty-four hours long, but it seemed longer. There's no hurry, for there's nowhere to go and nothing to buy...and no money to buy it with. Although Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself...That summer, I was six years old.

Narrator

By October, things had settled down again. I still looked for Boo every time I went by the Radley place. This night my mind was filled with Halloween. There was to be a pageant representing our county's agricultural products. I was to be a ham. Jem said he would escort me to the school auditorium. Thus began our longest journey together.

Narrator

Neighbors bring food with death, and flowers with sickness, and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a knife, and our lives.

Narrator

One time Atticus said you never really knew a man until you stood in his shoes and walked around in them. Just standin' on the Radley porch was enough. The summer that had begun so long ago had ended, and another summer had taken its place, and a fall, and Boo Radley had come out.

Narrator

I was to think of these days many times. Of Jem and Dill and Boo Radley, and Tom Robinson - and Atticus. He would be in Jem's room all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.

Narrator

Listen, no matter what she says to you, don't answer her back. There's a Confederate pistol in her lap under her shawl and she'll kill you quick as look at you. Come on.

Jeremy Jem Finch

He gets her interested in something nice, so she forgets to be mean.

Jeremy Jem Finch

Atticus says cheating a black man is ten times worse than cheating a white.

Jeremy Jem Finch

Your names longer'n you are. Bet it's a foot longer.

Jeremy Jem Finch

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.

Charles Baker Dill Harris

Not much is happening. The judge looks like he's asleep. I see your daddy and a colored man. The colored man looks to me like he's crying. I wonder what he's done to cry about?...There's a whole lot of men sitting together on one side and one man is pointing at the colored man and yelling. They're taking the colored man away.

Charles Baker Dill Harris

I can't use my left hand at all. I got it caught in a cotton gin when I was twelve years old. All my muscles were tore loose.

Tom Robinson

Seemed like every time I passed by yonder, she'd have some little somethin' for me to do, choppin' kindlin', and totin' water for her.

Tom Robinson

Well, I said I best be goin', I couldn't do nothin' for her, an' she said, oh, yes I could. An' I asked her what, and she said to jus' step on the chair yonder an' git that box down from on top of the chifforobe. So I done like she told me, and I was reachin' when the next thing I know she...grabbed me aroun' the legs. She scared me so bad I hopped down an' turned the chair over. That was the only thing, only furniture 'sturbed in the room, Mr. Finch, I swear, when I left it....Mr. Finch, I got down off the chair, and I turned around an' she sorta jumped on me. She hugged me aroun' the waist. She reached up an' kissed me on the face. She said she'd never kissed a grown man before an' she might as well kiss me. She says for me to kiss her back. And I said, Miss Mayella, let me outta here, an' I tried to run. Mr. Ewell cussed at her from the window and said he's gonna kill her.

Tom Robinson

He can do plenty of things...He can make somebody's will so airtight you can't break it. You count your blessings and stop complaining, both of you. Thank your stars he has the sense to act his age.

Maudie Atkinson