"A person likes to think of himself in a certain way, and when something happens that makes that no longer possible, you mourn the old self. The person you thought you were."

"Anita: My life works for me right now, but it wouldn't work for a child. Ronnie: Why, because you don't have a husband? Anita: No, because people try to kill me on a semiregular basis."

"No, really, Ronnie, it's good to share information when you know someone else is dating the lunarly challenged."

"You ask yourself "What is love? Am I in love?", when what you should be asking is, "What is not love?", ma petite. What is it that this man does for you that is not done out of love?"

"He wanted to feed the hunger of his skin. The hunger of his body not so much for orgasm but for that need to be held close and tight, that need we all have to press our nakedness against someone else's."

"Giving up something that no longer serves a purpose, or protects you, or helps you, isn't giving up at all, it's growing up."

"We hate most in others what we dislike in ourselves."

"I stepped out of the car on the rat king's arm, like a trophy wife--except for the wrist sheaths and the two folding knives hidden in my clothing. Somehow I think trophy wives wear more makeup and less cutlery. But, Hey, I haven't met a trophy wife, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they know what I know, that the true way to a man's heart is six inches of metal between his ribs. Sometimes four inches will do the job, but to be really sure, I like to have six. Funny how phallic objects are always more useful the bigger they are. Anyone who tells you size doesn't matter has been seeing too many small knives."

"Always needing to have the last word is a bad trait Ms. Blake, pisses people off."

"Pretend hard enough and maybe it will go away."

"People are supposed to fear the unknown, but ignorance is bliss when the knowledge is so damn frightening."

"My eyes were running because there were pieces of zombie all over my toys, Jesus."

"I could almost smell her fear... Why did it bother me so much? Because she and I were the only women here, and we had to be better than the men. Braver, quicker, whatever. It was a rule for playing with the big boys."

"I know who and what I am. I am The Executioner, and I don't date Vampires. I kill them."

"I won't die, eaten alive," he said. He put a fresh clip in his gun. I'll do you first if you want, or you can do it yourself. Save your bullets, Edward. I lifted a can of gasoline in one hand. What are you planning? he asked. I'm going to set the shed on fire. I splashed gasoline on the door. The smell was sharp and tugged at the back of my throat. With us inside? he asked. Yes. I'd rather shoot myself, if it's all the same to you."

"You will never lose your nerve. Your life, probably, but never your nerve.""

"I hate to waste a really good threat."

"I had been too long away from the nobility; I had forgotten how silly even the best of them could be."

"Love is too precious to be ashamed of."

"That feeling of terrible emptiness when I touched him was like going into a house that you thought would be full of people you loved, only to find it empty, and even the furniture taken. You walk from room to room, hearing your footsteps echo on the naked floors. Your voice bounces back from the empty walls, where the lines of beloved photos still show like the line around a body at a crime scene. He was gone."

"After a good, successful torture, she was as happy as I ever saw her. I guess everyone needed a hobby."

"A flower may be beautiful all on its own, but a person is never truly beautiful unless someone's eyes show him that he is beautiful."

"If I can't feel, if I can't move, if I can't think, and I can't care, then what conceivable point is there in living?"

"I have often asked myself whether, given the choice, I would choose to have manic-depressive illness. ... Strangely enough, I think I would choose to have it. It's complicated. Depression is awful beyond words or sounds or images ... So why would I want anything to do with this illness? Because I honestly believe that as a result of it I have felt more things, more deeply; had more experiences, more intensely; ... worn death 'as close as dungarees', appreciated it - and life - more; seen the finest and most terrible in people ... But, normal or manic, I have run faster, thought faster, and loved faster than most I know. And I think much of this is related to my illness - the intensity it gives to things"

"It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived."

"They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but 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."

"People in their right minds never take pride in their talents."

"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."

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

"Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they're not attracting attention with it, hotheadedness isn't."

"I crossed a threshold of reader pride after finishing “To Kill a Mockingbird.”"

"She's like a national treasure. She's someone who has made a difference … with this book. The book is still as strong as it ever was, and so is the film. All the kids in the United States read this book and see the film in the seventh and eighth grades and write papers and essays. My husband used to get thousands and thousands of letters from teachers who would send them to him."

"I remember the lasting impression that Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird had on me. I read that book again every decade or so."

"When the new wore off his grandfather’s watch, and carrying it became a day’s burdensome task, Jem no longer felt the necessity of ascertaining the hour every five minutes."

"There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire."

"Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird."

"...reasonable men, they went because we were there. There’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads—they couldn’t be fair if they tried."

"Mount Everest: throughout my early life, she was cold and there."

"...he said if enough people—a stadium full, maybe—were to concentrate on one thing, such as setting a tree afire in the woods, that the tree would ignite of its own accord. I toyed with the idea of asking everyone below to concentrate on setting Tom Robinson free, but"

"Each child was supposed to clip an item from a newspaper, absorb its contents, and reveal them to the class. This practice allegedly overcame a variety of evils: standing in front of his fellows encouraged good posture and gave a child poise; delivering a short talk made him word-conscious; learning his current event strengthened his memory; being singled out made him more than ever anxious to return to the Group."

"...brown but backwards"

"...before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself."

"Atticus said that Jem was trying hard to forget something, but what he was really doing was storing it away for a while, until enough time passed. Then he would be able to think about it and sort things out. When he was able to think about it, Jem would be himself again."

"Well if you don’t want me to grow up talkin‘ that way, why do you send me to school?"

"That’s because you can’t hold something in your mind but a little while, said Jem. It’s different with grown folks, we—"

"From now on it’ll be everybody less one—"

"Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough."

"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."

"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."

"I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks."