“No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky.”

We have never arrived. We are in a constant state of becoming.

How many times can a man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn’t see?

May you always be courageous, stand upright and be strong, may you stay forever young.

Democracy don’t rule the world, You’d better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that’s better left unsaid.

You always got to be prepared but you never know for what.

They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings steal a little and they throw you in jail. Steal a lot and then they make you king.

The picture you have in your mind of what you’re about will come true.

Adulterers in churches and pornography in the schools, you got gangsters in power and lawbreakers making rules. When you gonna wake up?

Don’t criticize what you can’t understand.

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.

Everybody’s wearing a disguise, to hide what they’ve got left behind their eyes.

Peace is the time it takes to reload your rifle.

The real power is in the hands of small groups of people and I don’t think they have titles.

People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.

Your mind is a your temple, keep it beautiful and free. Don’t let an egg get laid in it by something you can’t see.

Half of the people can be part right all of the time, Some of the people can be all right part of the time. I think Abraham Lincoln said that. ‘I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours,’ I said that.

[As a young man ] I came to the conclusion that the church was just a bunch of fascists that supported Franco. I stopped going on Sunday mornings and watched the birds with my father instead.

If you lose an opportunity you will be like one who lets the bird fly away; you will never get it back.

Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.

You can put wings on a pig, but you don’t make it an eagle.

It was terribly beautiful to Tess today, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing.

You can cage the songbird, but you can’t make her sing. And you can trap the free bird, but you’ll have to clip her wings.

Blessed be the Lord for the beauty of summer and spring, for the air, the water, the verdure, and the song of birds.

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.