To Kill a Mockingbird

1962

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... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.

Bob Ewell: You nigger lover. Atticus Finch: (to Jem) No need to be afraid of him, son. He's all bluff. (after they get home) 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.

Reverend Sykes: Jean Louise. Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passing.

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

Sheriff Tate: I may not be much Mr Finch, but I'm still sheriff of Maycomb County. And Bob Ewell fell on his knife. Good night sir.

Jem: There goes the meanest man that ever took a breath of life. Dill Harris: Why is he the meanest man? Jem: Well, for one thing, he has a boy named Boo that he keeps chained to a bed in the house over yonder. Boo only comes out at night when you're asleep and it's pitch-dark. When you wake up at night, you can hear him. Once I heard him scratchin' on our screen door, but he was gone by the time Atticus got there. Dill Harris: I wonder what he does in there? I wonder what he looks like? Jem: Well, judgin' from his tracks, he's about six and a half feet tall. He eats raw squirrels and all the cats he can catch. There's a long, jagged scar that runs all the way across his face. His teeth are yella and rotten. His eyes are popped. And he drools most of the time.

Bob Ewell: What kinda man are you?

Scout: May I see your watch? "To Atticus, My Beloved Husband." Atticus, Jem says this watch is gonna belong to him some day. Atticus Finch: That's right. Scout: Why? Atticus Finch: Well, it's customary for the boy to have his father's watch. Scout: What are you gonna give me? Atticus Finch: Well, I don't know that I have much else of value that belongs to me... But there's a pearl necklace; there's a ring that belonged to your mother. And I've put them away, and they're to be yours.

Atticus Finch: 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. Well, 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 corncrib, they don't do one thing but just sing their hearts out for us.

Tom Robinson: Looks like she didn't have nobody to help her. I felt right sorry for her. She seemed... Prosecutor: You felt sorry for her? A white woman? You felt sorry for her?

Older Scout: (narrating) Macomb 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 3 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 was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go and nothing to buy... and no money to buy it with. Although Macomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself... That summer, I was six years old.

(about Atticus) Miss Maudie Atkinson: 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.

Miss Stephanie Crawford: There's a maniac lives there and he's dangerous... I was standing in my yard one day when his Mama come out yelling, 'He's killin' us all.' Turned out that Boo was sitting in the living room cutting up the paper for his scrapbook, and when his daddy come by, he reached over with his scissors, stabbed him in his leg, pulled them out, and went right on cutting the paper. They wanted to send him to an asylum, but his daddy said no Radley was going to any asylum. So they locked him up in the basement of the courthouse till he nearly died of the damp, and his daddy brought him back home. There he is to this day, sittin' over there with his scissors... Lord knows what he's doin' or thinkin'.

(Atticus on the porch overhearing their conversation) Scout: How old was I when Mama died? Jem: Two. Scout: How old were you? Jem: Six. Scout: Old as I am now? Jem: Uh huh. Scout: ... Was Mama pretty? Jem: Uh, huh. Scout: Was Mama nice? Jem: Uh, huh. Scout: Did you love her? Jem: Yes. Scout: Did I love her? Jem: Yes. Scout: Do you miss her? Jem: Uh, huh.

Bob Ewell: I'm real sorry they picked you to defend that nigger that raped my Mayella. I don't know why I didn't kill him myself instead of goin' to the sheriff. That would have saved you and the sheriff and the taxpayers lots of trouble...

Calpurnia: That boy is your company. And if he wants to eat up that tablecloth, you let him, you hear? And if you can't act fit to eat like folks, you can just set here and eat in the kitchen.

(to Scout about Mrs Dubose) Jem: 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.

Atticus Finch: Do you know what a compromise is? Scout: Bendin' the law? Atticus Finch: (slightly bemused) Uh, no. It's an agreement reached by mutual consent. Now, here's the way it works. You concede the necessity of goin' to school, we'll keep right on readin' the same every night, just as we always have. Is that a bargain?

Older Scout: (narrating) There just didn't seem to be anyone or anything Atticus couldn't explain. Though it wasn't a talent that would arouse the admiration of any of our friends, Jem and I had to admit he was very good at that - but that was *all* he was good at... we thought.

Older Scout: (narrating) Atticus had promised me he would wear me out if he ever heard of me fightin' any more. I was far too old and too big for such childish things, and the sooner I learned to hold in, the better off everybody would be. I soon forgot... Cecil Jacobs *made* me forget.

Scout: Atticus, do you defend niggers? Atticus Finch: (startled) Don't say 'nigger,' Scout. Scout: I didn't say it... Cecil Jacobs did; that's why I had to fight him. Atticus Finch: (sternly) Scout, I don't want you fightin'! Scout: I had to, Atticus, he... Atticus Finch: I don't care what the reasons are: I forbid you to fight.

Atticus Finch: 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: 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 somethin' again. (he puts his arm around her) Atticus Finch: You're gonna hear some ugly talk about this in school. But I want you to promise me one thing: That you won't get into fights over it, no matter what they say to you.

Scout: I said, 'Hey,' Mr Cunningham. How's your entailment getting along? (He turns and looks away) Scout: Don't you remember me, Mr Cunningham? I'm Jean Louise Finch. You brought us some hickory nuts one early morning, remember? We had a talk. I went and got my daddy to come out and thank you. I go to school with your boy. I go to school with Walter; he's a nice boy. Tell him 'hey' for me, won't you? You know something, Mr Cunningham, entailments are bad. Entailments... (She suddenly becomes self-conscious) Scout: Atticus, I was just saying to Mr Cunningham that entailments were bad but not to worry. Takes a long time sometimes... (to the men who are staring up at her) Scout: What's the matter? I sure meant no harm, Mr Cunningham.

Atticus Finch: ... in an effort to get rid of her own guilt. Now I say guilt, gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society. A code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. She must destroy the evidence of her offense. But what was the evidence of her offense? Tom Robinson - a human being. She must put Tom Robinson away from her. (He gestures, pushing away with his hands.) Tom Robinson was for her, a daily reminder of what she did. Now what did she do? She tempted a Negro. She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable. She kissed a black man. Not an old uncle, but a strong, young Negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards.

Older Scout: (narrating) 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.

Scout: Why there he is, Mr Tate. He can tell you his name... (Looks at the man) Scout: Hey, Boo. Atticus Finch: (making introductions) Miss Jean Louise, Mr Arthur Radley. I believe he already knows you.

Older Scout: (narrating) 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.

Older Scout: (narrating) 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.

Older Scout: (narrating) 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.

(about Jem) Scout: You can pet him, Mr Arthur. He's asleep. Couldn't if he was awake, though; he wouldn't let you. Go ahead.

Mayella Ewell: I got somethin' to say. And then I ain't gonna say no more. He took advantage of me. An' if you fine, fancy gentlemen ain't gonna do nothin' about it, then you're just a bunch of lousy, yella, stinkin' cowards, the - the whole bunch of ya, and your fancy airs don't come to nothin'. Your Ma'am'in' and your Miss Mayellarin' - it don't come to nothin', Mr Finch, not... no.

Dill Harris: I'm little but I'm old.

Dill Harris: Hey. Jem: Hey yourself. Dill Harris: I'm Charles Baker Harris. I can read. I can read anything you've got. (swinging on the gate) Folks call me Dill. Jem: How old are you? Four and a half? Dill Harris: Nearly seven. Jem: Well no wonder then. Scouts bin readin' since she was born, and she's not even six yet. You're mighty puny for nearly seven. Dill Harris: I'm little but I'm old.

Dill Harris: 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.

Sheriff Heck Tate: Didn't you know your daddy's the best shot in this county?

(testifying) Mayella Ewell: I was sittin' on the porch, and he come along. Uh, there's this old chifforobe in the yard, and I-I said, 'You come in here, boy, and bust up this chifforobe, and I'll give you a nickel.' So he-he come on in the yard and I go in the house to get him the nickel and I turn around, and 'fore I know it, he's on me, and I fought and hollered, but he had me around the neck, and he hit me again and again, and the next thing I knew, Papa was in the room, a-standin' over me, hollerin', 'Who done it, who done it?'

Atticus Finch: Now gentlemen, in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal. I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and of our jury system. That's no ideal to me. That is a living, working reality. Now I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence that you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this man to his family. In the name of God, do your duty. In the name of God, believe Tom Robinson.

Atticus Finch: (to Jury) In the name of God! Do your duty.

Scout: Mr Tate was right. Atticus Finch: What do you mean? Scout: Well, it would be sort of like shooting a mockingbird, wouldn't it?

Tom Robinson: 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.

(testifying) 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. (a murmur erupts in the courthouse) 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. (Tom shakes his head, re-living the ordeal with his eyes half-closed) 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.

Atticus Finch: Good Afternoon Miss Dubose... My, you look like a picture this afternoon. Scout: (hiding behind Atticus whispering to Jem and Dill) He don't say a picture of what.

Scout: Hey Miss Dubose. Mrs Dubose: Don't you say "hey" to me you ugly girl!

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