Monthly Archives: July 2010

To say To Kill a Mockingbird changed my life might be putting it mildly.  I’ve always been a reader, ever since I could hold up a book.  But up until the point I had to read To Kill a Mockingbird  in high school, most of my reading life had consisted of perfect size six blonde twins who only worried who their next boyfriend was and the messed up world of Christopher Pike.  To Kill a Mockingbird introduced a whole new world of literature to me.  Through Harper Lee I met Carson McCullers, Eudora Welty and Flannery O’Connor.  I moved on into the worlds of D’Artagnan, Cosette, and Quasimodo.  I learned that books could be deep, dark, powerful and empowering.

I learned to care about my fellow man, to respect them and show them kindness.  I learned that you are never too old for imagination.  And I expect Atticus set my expectations of men a *little* high. 

It has been a joy and privileged, as well as so much fun reading To Kill a Mockingbird with you guys this month.  I hope you will come around tonight, 8:30 EST, to watch the movie with Dawn of Too Fond of Books and I.  We’ll be watching the movie and discussing the hotness of Gregory Peck amazing job they did transforming this unforgettable book into a movie that is just as unforgettable.  Be sure you are following me @CapriciousReadr and @TooFondofBooks and follow #tkam and join in the party!

If you wrote a review or wrap up post for To Kill a Mockingbird or any other relevant books or posts you wrote this month you can link to them here.  And I hope you will consider joining Amanda from The Zen Leaf and I later this year (we’re aiming for September) to read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Since I’m on vacation this week, and therefore behind in my reading because I was getting ready to leave, I thought I’d do favorite quotes this week.  To Kill a Mockingbird is so quotable, thanks to the beautiful text, and the faithful screenplay for the movie.  I have so many favorite quotes from this book!  Here are a few:

Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.

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.

When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness’ sake. But don’t make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles ‘em.

Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.

Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.

The witnesses for the state have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption – the evil assumption – that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber. Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson’s skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men cannot be trusted around women, black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.

And that’s just a few.  What are your favorite quotes?