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With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable.Harper Lee
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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
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Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.Harper Lee
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As you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to others, and don't think you are the most important being on earth. Rich or poor, you then can look anyone in the eye and say, 'I'm probably no better than you, but I'm certainly your equal.Harper Lee
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Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in.Harper Lee
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Atticus, he was real nice."" Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.Harper Lee
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Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.Harper Lee
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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.Harper Lee
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Naw, Jem. I think that there is just one kind of folks. Folks."Jen turned and punched his pillow. WHen he settle back his face was cloudy. He was going in to one of his declines, and I grew wary. His brows came together; his mouth became a thin line. He was silent for a while. That is what I thought, too, " he said at last, "when I was your age. If there is just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go ut of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I am beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley stayed shut up in the house all this time..it's because he wants to stay inside.Harper Lee
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Don’t talk like that, Dill, ” said Aunt Alexandra. “It’s not becoming to a child. It’s — cynical.”“ I ain’t cynical, Miss Alexandra. Tellin’ the truth’s not cynical, is it?”“ The way you tell it, it is.Harper Lee
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Some negroes lie, some are immoral, some negro men are not be trusted around women - black and white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.Harper Lee
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Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)... There are just some kind of men who - who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.Harper Lee
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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.Harper Lee
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When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion faster than adults, and evasion simply muddles 'em.Harper Lee
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Everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowing.Harper Lee
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Never, never, never, on cross-examination ask a witness a question you don't already know the answer to.Harper Lee
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Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.Harper Lee
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You deny them hope... You are telling them that Jesus loves them, but not much.Harper Lee
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How could this be so, I wondered, as I read Mr. Underwood's editorial. Senseless killing-- Tom had been given due process of law to the day of his death; he had been tried openly and convicted by twelve good men and true; my father had fought for him all the way. Then Mr. Underwood's meaning became clear: Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.Harper Lee
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Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.Harper Lee