To Kill a Mockingbird Family Quotes

Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy head. He could read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of his own inventions. He could add and subtract faster than lighting, but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept, waiting to be gathered like morning lilies.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 14. Dill Harris has run away from home to be with his friends Scout and Jem. Highly intelligent, creative and sensitive, as revealed in this insightful description by Scout, he is also lonely. He dreams of a twilight world where children like him will be hugged and coddled and greatly loved, like the world he shares with the Finch childen.

“Lemme tell you somethin’ now, Billy,” a third said, “you know the court appointed him to defend this n*****.”
“Yeah, but Atticus aims to defend him. That’s what I don’t like about it.”
This was news, news that put a different light on things: Atticus had to, whether he wanted to or not. I thought it odd that he hadn’t said anything to us about it – we could have used it many times in defending him and ourselves. He had to, that’s why he was doing it, equaled fewer fights and less fussing. But did that explain the town’s attitude? The court appointed Atticus to defend him. Atticus aimed to defend him. That’s what they didn’t like about it. It was confusing.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 16. Scout hears the chatter from court spectators that Atticus had to defend Tom Robinson because he was appointed by Judge Taylor. But he hadn’t told his children that. She is further confused when the chatterers say Atticus aims to put on a defense for Tom and they don’t like this. Atticus wanted to take on Tom’s case because he wants justice to be served and wants to protect people’s rights, and he needs his children to understand how deeply he cares about this. Always the morally principled and excellent father who teaches by example.

Every town the size of Maycomb had families like the Ewells. No economic fluctuations changed their status – people like the Ewells lived as guests of the county in prosperity as well as in the depths of a depression. No truant officers could keep their numerous offspring in school; no public health officer could free them from congenital defects, various worms, and the diseases indigenous to filthy surroundings.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 17. Scout describes the position of the Ewell family in Maycomb. They are poor, social outcasts and at the bottom rung of white society.

“What if he was kin to us, Aunty?”
“The fact is that he is not kin to us, but if he were, my answer would be the same.”
“Aunty,” Jem spoke up, “Atticus says you can choose your friends but you sho’ can’t choose your family, an’ they’re still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge ’em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don’t.”
“That’s your father all over again,” said Aunt Alexandra, “and I still say that Jean Louise will not invite Walter Cunningham to this house. If he were her double first cousin once removed he would still not be received in this house unless he comes to see Atticus on business. Now that is that.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 23. Aunt Alexandra is challenged by Scout and Jem when she refuses to let Walter Cunningham Jr. come to lunch. Their aunt displays her prejudicial and judgemental nature, looking down her nose on the family of poor farmer Walter Cunningham. But the children show decency and respect for other people – something they learned from their father Atticus. One of the great appeals of the novel is that, despite the absense of Scout’s mother, the Finch family demonstrates family life at its best.

“Background doesn’t mean Old Family,” said Jem. “I think it’s how long your family’s been readin’ and writin’. Scout, I’ve studied this real hard and that’s the only reason I can think of. Somewhere along when the Finches were in Egypt one of ’em must have learned a hieroglyphic or two and he taught his boy.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 23. Jem and Scout are trying to understand what “background” of the Finches that Aunt Alexandra is so proud of. Jem figures that literacy is an important measure of an old, quality or good family.

They put the women out in huts when their time came, whatever that was; they had no sense of family – I knew that’d distress Aunty – they subjected children to terrible ordeals when they were thirteen; they were crawling with yaws and earworms, they chewed up and spat out the bark of a tree into a communal pot and then got drunk on it.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 24. Mrs. Merriweather reports to the ladies of the missionary circle about plight of the non-Christian Mruna people in Africa, said to live in terrible squalor. They women are offended by how the families are treated. This is ironical, considering how badly these women treat black people in their own community.

I learned more about the poor Mrunas’ social life from listening to Mrs. Merriweather: they had so little sense of family that the whole tribe was one big family. A child had as many fathers as there were men in the community, as many mothers as there were women. J. Grimes Everett was doing his utmost to change this state of affairs, and desperately needed our prayers.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 27. Scout reveals what she has learned about African Mruna family life from listening to the white middleclass ladies at their missionary tea meeting. Doesn’t paint a pretty picture. But they’re rather judgemental ladies full of small southern town prejudices.

“Heck,” Atticus’s back was turned. “If this thing’s hushed up it’ll be a simple denial to Jem of the way I’ve tried to raise him. Sometimes I think I’m a total failure as a parent, but I’m all they’ve got. Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him… if I connived at something like this, frankly I couldn’t meet his eye, and the day I can’t do that I’ll know I’ve lost him. I don’t want to lose him and Scout, because they’re all I’ve got.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 30. Atticus thinks it was Jem who stabbed Bob Ewell, in self-defense, but he refuses to have Sheriff Heck Tate hush it up. He taught his children to lead honest, decent lives, so he feels he cannot be party to spreading a lie and undoing everything he has tried to teach them.
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