Tom Robinson Quotes in To Kill a Mockingbird
“If you shouldn't be defendin' him, then why are you doin' it?”
“For a number of reasons,” said Atticus. “The main one is, if I didn't I couldn't hold up my head in town, I couldn't represent this county in the legislature, I couldn't even tell you or Jem not to do something again.”
[…]
"Atticus, are we going to win it?"
“No, honey.”
“Then why—”
“Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win,” Atticus said.
“Atticus, you must be wrong…”
“How's that?”
“Well, most folks seem to think they're right and you're wrong…”
“If you had a clear conscience, why were you scared?”
“Like I says before, it weren't safe for any nigger to be in a—fix like that.”
“But you weren't in a fix—you testified that you were resisting Miss Ewell. Were you so scared that she'd hurt you, you ran, a big buck like you?”
“No suh, I's scared I'd be in court, just like I am now.”
“Scared of arrest, scared you'd have to face up to what you did?”
“No suh, scared I'd hafta face up to what I didn't do.”
“The way that man called him 'boy' all the time an' sneered at him, an' looked around at the jury every time he answered— … It ain't right, somehow it ain't right to do 'em that way. Hasn't anybody got any business talkin' like that—it just makes me sick.”
“They've done it before and they did it tonight and they'll do it again and when they do it—seems that only children weep.”
Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.
Tom Robinson Quotes in To Kill a Mockingbird
“If you shouldn't be defendin' him, then why are you doin' it?”
“For a number of reasons,” said Atticus. “The main one is, if I didn't I couldn't hold up my head in town, I couldn't represent this county in the legislature, I couldn't even tell you or Jem not to do something again.”
[…]
"Atticus, are we going to win it?"
“No, honey.”
“Then why—”
“Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win,” Atticus said.
“Atticus, you must be wrong…”
“How's that?”
“Well, most folks seem to think they're right and you're wrong…”
“If you had a clear conscience, why were you scared?”
“Like I says before, it weren't safe for any nigger to be in a—fix like that.”
“But you weren't in a fix—you testified that you were resisting Miss Ewell. Were you so scared that she'd hurt you, you ran, a big buck like you?”
“No suh, I's scared I'd be in court, just like I am now.”
“Scared of arrest, scared you'd have to face up to what you did?”
“No suh, scared I'd hafta face up to what I didn't do.”
“The way that man called him 'boy' all the time an' sneered at him, an' looked around at the jury every time he answered— … It ain't right, somehow it ain't right to do 'em that way. Hasn't anybody got any business talkin' like that—it just makes me sick.”
“They've done it before and they did it tonight and they'll do it again and when they do it—seems that only children weep.”
Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.
