This month, the literature world mourns the death of the iconic author Harper Lee. Lee wrote a little book you may have heard of once or twice, "To Kill a Mockingbird." This book has become famous for being on everyone’s summer reading list and also infamously showing up on the “banned book” list. Although many Millennials follow any reference of "To Kill a Mockingbird" with an eye roll because of PTSD from AP English classes, I have had a completely different experience. Harper Lee wrote the book that began my love affair with words and compassion.
"To Kill a Mockingbird" is a novel based around the racial tensions of the deep South during the Great Depression. It is narrated by six-year-old Scout Finch and follows her journey as her lawyer father, Atticus, defends a black man in a rape trial. Throughout the novel, Lee examines controversial topics like racism, sexism and classism through the eyes of the innocent and young Scout. By doing this, Lee is able to symbolically allude to the way we are all shaped by the society in which we live.
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Today, I would like to remind us all of some of the most profound quotes found in Lee’s beloved first novel. I hope that these quotes remind us all to be a little bit more compassionate, especially with the things going on in society today. Although we have come a long way from the way things were in 1933 in Alabama, we still have a long way to go. We can all take a page from Lee’s book and remember that “there’s just one kind of folks: 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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time. It's because he wants to stay inside.”
“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.”
“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.”
“We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe- some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they're born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others- some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of men. But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal- there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court.”
“Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. It's knowing you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”
“Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
