Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch Quotes

It was then, I suppose, that Jem and I first began to part company. Sometimes I did not understand him, but my periods of bewilderment were short-lived. This was beyond me.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 6. Jem wants to go back at night to the Radley house to retrieve the pants he lost there, because he doesn’t want Atticus to find out he was there. Scout doesn’t want him to go because she thinks that Nathan Radley will shoot him. Scout realizes that Jem is getting older, and she is too young to really understand him.

Jem stayed moody and silent for a week. As Atticus had once advised me to do, I tried to climb into Jem’s skin and walk around in it: if I had gone alone to the Radley Place at two in the morning, my funeral would have been held the next afternoon. So I left Jem alone and tried not to bother him.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 7. When Scout notices a change in Jem’s mood, she uses her father’s advice to resolve conflict. Instead of jumping in headlong, she holds back and tries to understand how it would have felt to go into the Radleys’ yard in the early hours alone. She shows growing maturity here.

The sixth grade seemed to please him from the beginning: he went through a brief Egyptian Period that baffled me – he tried to walk flat a great deal, sticking one arm in front of him and one in back of him, putting one foot behind the other. He declared Egyptians walked that way; I said if they did I didn’t see how they got anything done, but Jem said they accomplished more than the Americans ever did, they invented toilet paper and perpetual embalming, and asked where would we be today if they hadn’t? Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I’d have the facts.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 7. Scout on her brother Jem and both of them growing up. The “delete the adjectives” advice from Atticus to Scout refers to Jem’s exaggerations and fantastical ideas.

“Mr. Radley, ah – did you put cement in that hole in that tree down yonder?”
“Yes,” he said. “I filled it up.”
“Why’d you do it, sir?”
“Tree’s dying. You plug ’em with cement when they’re sick. You ought to know that, Jem.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 7. When the Radley tree is filled with cement by Nathan, it symbolizes the end of Boo Radley’s attempts to communicate with Scout and Jem. He does this through the gifts he leaves in the tree for them. They represent the friendship he has towards the children. Nathan filled the knot hole with cement because he caught Boo leaving presents there for the children. Atticus told them the tree didn’t seem sick.

“Someday, maybe, Scout can thank him for covering her up.”
“Thank who?” I asked.
“Boo Radley. You were so busy looking at the fire you didn’t know it when he put the blanket around you.”
My stomach turned to water and I nearly threw up when Jem held out the blanket and crept toward me. “He sneaked out of the house – turn ’round – sneaked up, an’ went like this!”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 8. After the fire at Miss Maudie’s house, Jem, Scout and Atticus are drinking hot chocolate in their kitchen when Atticus refers to the blanket that Scout is wrapped in. She is shocked to learn it was the mysterious Boo Radley who sneaked out of the house and put it on her in an act of kindness and friendship.

“Always wanted a smaller house, Jem Finch. Gives me more yard. Just think, I’ll have more room for my azaleas now!”
“You ain’t grievin’, Miss Maudie?” I asked, surprised. Atticus said her house was nearly all she had.
“Grieving, child? Why, I hated that old cow barn. Thought of settin’ fire to it a hundred times myself, except they’d lock me up.”
“…Don’t you worry about me, Jean Louise Finch. There are ways of doing things you don’t know about. Why, I’ll build me a little house and take me a couple of roomers and – gracious, I’ll have the finest yard in Alabama. Those Bellingraths’ll look plain puny when I get started.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 8. When Miss Maudie’s entire house burns down she courageously looks on the bright side and shows Jem and Scout how to face adversity.

“Every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally. This one’s mine, I guess.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 9. Atticus Finch to daughter Scout, on the importance of him taking on the defense of black man Tom Robinson and showing moral courage. With his strong sense of justice and fair play, Atticus believes that every person has the right to proper representation in a court of law. He knows he cannot win, but it is important to him personally to show his children the right way to act and the right way to treat other people. He represents morality in Mockingbird.

The only time I ever heard Atticus speak sharply to anyone was when I once heard him say, “Sister, I do the best I can with them!” It had something to do with my going around in overalls. Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn’t supposed to be doing things that required pants. Aunt Alexandra’s vision of my department involved playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-A-Pearl necklace she gave me when I was born; furthermore I should be a ray of sunshine in my father’s lonely life. I suggested that one could be a ray of sunshine in pants just as well, but Aunty said that one had to behave like a sunbeam, that I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 9. Aunt Alexandra, Atticus’s sister, is critical of the way he is bringing up his children. Tomboy Scout is a true representative of feminism who dresses like a boy and likes taking part in what are considered boys’ activitities. Alexandra’s vision for Scout is that she do ladylike things and be a “ray of sunshine” for her lonely father. However, Scout is her father’s daughter and feels she can be that ray in pants also.

“If Uncle Atticus lets you run around with stray dogs, that’s his own business, like Grandma says, so it ain’t your fault. I guess it ain’t your fault if Uncle Atticus is a n*****-lover besides, but I’m here to tell you it certainly does mortify the rest of the family – ”
“Francis, what the hell do you mean?”
“Just what I said. Grandma says it’s bad enough he lets you all run wild, but now he’s turned out a n*****-lover we’ll never be able to walk the streets of Maycomb agin. He’s ruinin’ the family, that’s what he’s doin’.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 9. The obnoxious young Francis Hancock tells Scout how his grandmother, Aunt Alexandra, doesn’t like the way Atticus is rearing his children and letting Scout run wild. He also reveals Alexandra’s undisguised racism.

“Your daughter gave me my first lessons this afternoon. She said I didn’t understand children much and told me why. She was quite right. Atticus, she told me how I should have treated her – oh dear, I’m so sorry I romped on her.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 9. Uncle Jack admits to Atticus that Scout has taught him a lesson. Her father has brought her up by instilling in her good values and morals. Here she shows maturity for her age and that she is wiser than her uncle, a grown man.

Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they’re not attracting attention with it.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 9. Atticus says this to Uncle Jack, after Jack points out that Scout’s use of bathroom invective leaves nothing to the imagination. Atticus believes that it is better to ignore the language, and Scout will grow out of it. Some neighbors think that Atticus is an unqualified parent, but he is a smart and loving father who has a particular parenting style that distinguishes him from a lot of other parents in Maycomb.

But I never figured out how Atticus knew I was listening, and it was not until many years later that I realized he wanted me to hear every word he said.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 9. Atticus and Uncle Jack have been talking about the abuse the children will face in school because of Atticus defending Tom Robinson. Atticus expresses the hope that the children will come to him for answers to questions. He does not want them infected with the same hatred and prejudice that many Maycomb people have when it comes to issues concerning black people. Another example of Atticus’s good parenting.

After my bout with Cecil Jacobs when I committed myself to a policy of cowardice, word got around that Scout Finch wouldn’t fight any more, her daddy wouldn’t let her. This was not entirely correct: I wouldn’t fight publicly for Atticus, but the family was private ground. I would fight anyone from a third cousin upwards tooth and nail. Francis Hancock, for example, knew that.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 10. After Atticus urges her to use her head instead of her fists, Scout follows a “policy of cowardice” in which she will not retaliate against others. Scout wants to fight with Cecil Jacobs because he announced that “Scout Finch’s daddy defended n*****s.” But she doesn’t because it would let Atticus down.

“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.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 10. Atticus Finch’s instruction, when he gives the childen air rifles for Christmas, foreshadowing the shooting of symbolic mockingbird Tom Robinson. The mockingbird, which sings beautiful music for the benefit of others and never does harm to anyone, is a symbol of innocence. So the rifles come with the condition attached: they are never to kill a mockingbird.

He did not do the things our schoolmates’ fathers did: he never went hunting, he did not play poker or fish or drink or smoke. He sat in the livingroom and read.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 10. Atticus stands out as different to other people in Maycomb. He spends his time reading, instead of hunting, gambling, fishing, drinking or smoking. In this passage the young Scout is actually complaining about her nearly fifty-year-old father, whom she moans is “feeble” and doesn’t do anything except read and work in an office.

If your father’s anything, he’s civilized in his heart. Marksmanship’s a gift of God, a talent – oh, you have to practice to make it perfect, but shootin’s different from playing the piano or the like. I think maybe he put his gun down when he realized that God had given him an unfair advantage over most living things. I guess he decided he wouldn’t shoot till he had to, and he had to today.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 10. Miss Maudie tries to explain to Jem and Scout about Atticus’s excellent markmanship and why he shows a lack of pride in it. Instead of taking pride in being the best shot in Maycomb, he put the gun down and stopped hunting. Miss Maudie points out that this was because he felt he was a civilized man and refused to take advantage of weakness.

“Scout,” said Atticus, “when summer comes you’ll have to keep your head about far worse things…it’s not fair for you and Jem, I know that, but sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down – well, all I can say is, when you and Jem are grown, maybe you’ll look back on this with some compassion and some feeling that I didn’t let you down. This case, Tom Robinson’s case, is something that goes to the essence of a man’s conscience – Scout, I couldn’t go to church and worship God if I didn’t try to help that man.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 11. When Scout worries about the reactions of people in Maycomb to her father’s taking on the defense of Tom Robinson, he reassures her. He knows that many white folks who think badly of the black residents disapprove of his decision. But he wants her to know that doing the right thing is more important in this case.

“Atticus, you must be wrong…”
“How’s that?”
“Well, most folks seem to think they’re right and you’re wrong…”
“They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions,” said Atticus, “but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 11. Scout to Atticus, questioning her father’s choices based on what the majority of the people in the town think about him defending rape accused Tom Robinson. This also also shows the flaws with justice here, with most people having negative feelings towards black people.
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