Вбити пересмішника

— Меня просили очистить зал от публики или по крайней мере удалить женщин и детей, — сказал судья Тейлор. — До поры до времени я отклонил эту просьбу. Люди обычно видят и слышат то, что они хотят увидеть и услышать, и если им угодно приводить на подобные спектакли своих детей, это их право.

Может быть, если бы мы не давали им столько поводов для разговора, они бы и не разговаривали.

— Дилл…
— М-м?
— Как по-твоему, отчего Страшила Рэдли не сбежал из дому?
Дилл протяжно вздохнул и повернулся на бок. И сказал через плечо:
— Может, ему некуда бежать…

North Alabama was full of Liquor Interests, Big Mules, steel companies, Republicans, professors, and other persons of no background.

He had asked me earlier in the summer to marry him, then he promptly forgot about it. He staked me out, marked as his property, said I was the only girl he would ever love, then he neglected me. I beat him up twice but it did no good, he only grew closer to Jem.

Dr. Buford’s profession was medicine and his obsession was anything that grew in the ground, so he stayed poor. Uncle Jack Finch confined his passion for digging to his window boxes in Nashville and stayed rich.

Long ago, in a burst of friendliness, Aunty and Uncle Jimmy produced a son named Henry, who left home as soon as was humanly possible, married, and produced Francis.

Dill’s new father had a pleasant face, which made me glad Dill had captured him.

In addition to Jem’s newly developed characteristics, he had acquired a maddening air of wisdom.

Maycomb’s proportion of professional people ran high: one went there to have his teeth pulled, his wagon fixed, his heart listened to, his money deposited, his soul saved, his mules vetted.

Scout, you’ll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to grow up to be a lady, don’t you?”

I said not particularly.

His sermon was a forthright denunciation of sin, an austere declaration of the motto on the wall behind him: he warned his flock against the evils of heady brews, gambling, and strange women. Bootleggers caused enough trouble in the Quarters, but women were worse. Again, as I had often met it in my own church, I was confronted with the Impurity of Women doctrine that seemed to preoccupy all clergymen.

Once, when Aunty assured us that Miss Stephanie Crawford’s tendency to mind other people’s business was hereditary, Atticus said, “Sister, when you stop to think about it, our generation’s practically the first in the Finch family not to marry its cousins. Would you say the Finches have an Incestuous Streak?”

Aunty said no, that’s where we got our small hands and feet.

Aunt Alexandra was of the opinion, obliquely expressed, that the longer a family had been squatting on one patch of land the finer it was.

The jail was Maycomb’s only conversation piece: its detractors said it looked like a Victorian privy; its supporters said it gave the town a good solid respectable look, and no stranger would ever suspect that it was full of niggers.

Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in. Mr. Cunningham displayed no interest in his son, so I tackled his entailment once more in a last-ditch effort to make him feel at home.

She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl.

Atticus said naming people after Confederate generals made slow steady drinkers.

When the three of us came to her house, Atticus would sweep off his hat, wave gallantly to her and say, “Good evening, Mrs. Dubose! You look like a picture this evening.”

I never heard Atticus say like a picture of what.

Но вот что я тебе скажу, сын, и ты это запомни: если белый так поступает с чёрным, кто бы ни был этот белый, как бы он ни был богат, из какой бы хорошей семьи ни вышел, всё равно он — подонок.