To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Older Scout: 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 9:00 in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their 3:00 naps and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum. A day was 24 hours long, but it seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was 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 6 years old...

Atticus Finch: Scout, I think maybe next time Mr. Cunningham comes, you'd better not call me.
Scout Finch: I thought you'd want to thank him.
Atticus Finch: Oh, I do. But I think it embarrasses him to be thanked.
Scout Finch: Why does he bring you all this stuff?
Atticus Finch: He is paying me for some legal work I did for him.
Scout Finch: Why is he paying you like this?
Atticus Finch: That's the only way he can. He has no money.
Scout Finch: Is he poor?
Atticus Finch: Yes.
Scout Finch: Are we poor?
Atticus Finch: We are indeed.
Scout Finch: Are we as poor as the Cunninghams?
Atticus Finch: No, not exactly. The Cunninghams are country folks, farmers. The Crash hit them the hardest.

Atticus Finch: I've been appointed to defend Tom Robinson. And now that he's been charged, that's what I intend to do.
Mr. Ewell: You're taking his...
Atticus Finch: If you'll excuse me, Mr. Ewell.
Mr. Ewell: What kind of man are you? You've got children of your own.

Dill Harris: So long. I'll see you next summer.

Jem Finch: How old were you when you got your first gun, Atticus?
Atticus Finch: Thirteen or fourteen... I remember when my daddy gave me that gun. He told me that I should never point 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'd suppose the temptation to go after birds would be too much. That I could shoot all the blue jays I wanted if I could hit them. But to remember it was a sin to kill a mockingbird.
Scout Finch:
Atticus Finch: I reckon because mockingbirds don't do anything but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat people's gardens, don't nest in the corncribs. They don't do one thing, but just sing their hearts out for us.

Atticus Finch: If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.
Scout Finch: Sir?
Atticus Finch: Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.

Atticus Finch: Scout? Do you know what a compromise is?
Scout Finch: ... Bending the law?
Atticus Finch: No. It's an agreement reached by mutual consent. Here is the way it works. You concede the necessity of going to school and we'll keep right on reading the same every night, just as we always have. Is that a bargain?

Atticus Finch: There's a lot of ugly things in this world, Son. I wish I could keep them all away from you. That's never possible.

Scout Finch: Atticus, do you defend niggers?
Atticus Finch: Don't say nigger, Scout.
Scout Finch: I didn't say it. Cecil Jacobs did. That's why I had to fight him.

Atticus Finch: Anyway, I'm simply defending a Negro, Tom Robinson... Scout, there are some things that you're not old enough to understand just yet... There's been some high talk around town to the effect that I shouldn't do much about defending this man.
Scout Finch: If you shouldn't be defending him, then why are you doing it?
Atticus Finch: For a number of reasons. The main one is that if I didn't, I couldn't hold my head up in town. I couldn't even tell you or Jem not to do something again.

Prosecutor: You felt sorry for her? A white woman? You felt sorry for her...

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