Radley Quotes & Sayings

The Maycomb school grounds adjoined the back of the Radley lot; from the Radley chickenyard tall pecan trees shook their fruit into the schoolyard, but the nuts lay untouched by the children: Radley pecans would kill you. A baseball hit into the Radley yard was a lost ball and no questions asked. The — Harper Lee

No one made a decision to militarize the police in America. The change has come slowly, the result of a generation of politicians and public officials fanning and exploiting public fears by declaring war on abstractions like crime, drug use, and terrorism. The resulting policies have made those war metaphors increasingly real. — Radley Balko

The best way to alleviate the obesity "public health" crisis is to remove obesity from the realm of public health. It doesn't belong there. It's difficult to think of anything more private and of less public concern than what we choose to put into our bodies. It only becomes a public matter when we force the public to pay for the consequences of those choices. — Radley Balko

Multiple studies, including from the Justice Department, have shown that the guns used in homicides, including the killing of police officers, overwhelmingly tend to be small-caliber handguns. Moreover, gun ownership has increased over the past 20 years - the same period in which both the violent crime rate and the killing of police officers have been in decline. — Radley Balko

When I pointed to him his palms slipped slightly, leaving greasy sweat streaks on the wall, and he hooked his thumbs in his belt. A strange spasm shook him, as if he heard fingernails scrape slate, but as I gazed at him in wonder the tension slowly drained from his face. His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor's image blurred with my sudden tears.
"Hey, Boo," I said.
"Mr. Arthur, honey," said Atticus, gently correcting me. "Jean Louise, this is Mr. Arthur Radley. I believe he already knows you. — Harper Lee

Shoulder up, I reeled around to face Boo Radley and his bloody fangs; instead, I saw Dill ringing the bell with all his might in Atticus's face. — Harper Lee

Tell you what. If one of you bests me? I'll let you train." He crossed his arms over his chest. "So which one of you is it gonna be?" "Me," Lotte and Radley said simultaneously. "There can be only one," Deacon said, deadpan. Holy fuck. Knox was about to burst out laughing at Deacon's Highlander reference. This whole thing had headed into farce territory. — Lorelei James

I have dirty things on my mind and they all involve Rebecca Radley. — Holly Stone

The only thing written in stone is your epitaph. — Elaine Radley

Nobody knew what form of intimidation Mr. Radley employed to keep Boo out of sight, but Jem figured that Mr. Radley kept him chained to the bed most of the time. Atticus said no, it wasn't that sort of thing, that there were other ways of making people into ghosts. — Harper Lee

I told Jem if he set fire to the Radley house I was going to tell Atticus on him. — Harper Lee

The key to good writing is to leave Boo Radley in the house until the end of the story. — Michael P. Naughton

Finally, this case should serve as yet another reminder of just how dangerous and volatile these police home invasions really are, and why we should stop using them to serve search warrants for nonviolent crimes. They offer no margin for error. — Radley Balko

Yes, bin Laden the man is dead. But he achieved all he set out to achieve, and a hell of a lot more. He forever changed who we are as a country, and for the worse. Mostly because we let him. That isn't something a special ops team can fix. — Radley Balko

Miss Maudie settled her bridgework. "You know old Mr. Radley was a foot-washing Baptist - " "That's what you are, ain't it?" "My shell's not that hard, child. I'm just a Baptist." "Don't you all believe in foot-washing?" "We do. At home in the bathtub." "But we can't have communion with you all - — Harper Lee

Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces (Balko, Radley) — Anonymous

If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time. It's because he wants to stay inside. — Harper Lee

Modern 'public health' initiatives have moved well beyond what could reasonably be classified as public goods. Today, government undertakes all sorts of policies in the name of public health that are aimed at regulating personal behavior. — Radley Balko

When Scout finds Boo Radley hiding behind her bedroom door, she says something that is scary because it is calm. Something like, "Why, there's the man right there, Mr. Tate." Or whatever his name is. Scout's not surprised to find a hollow-eyed monster in the form of Robert Duvall behind her door. She opens a line into magic, possibility. Or mystery, that's a better word than magic. Like an open hole in the ground no one noticed until Scout pointed it out, a place where men with dark secrets live behind every bedroom door. Scout's calm voice says, "The rest of you are blind. — Samantha Hunt

Police officers today are a protected class, one no politician wants to oppose. Law enforcement interests may occasionally come up short on budgetary issues, but legislatures rarely if ever pass new laws to hold police more accountable, to restrict their powers, or to make them more transparent. In short, police today embody all of the threats the Founders feared were posed by standing armies, plus a few additional ones they couldn't have anticipated. — Radley Balko

Boo and I walked up the steps to the porch. His fingers found the doorknob. He gently released my hand, opened the door, enter inside, and shut the door behind him. I never saw him again. — Harper Lee

But not every dog was Boo Radley. Sometimes a dog was just a dog. Sometimes a cat was just a cat. Still, I opened the screen door and stuck a red sticker on Lucille's head. — Kami Garcia

leave the place. From the day Mr Radley took Arthur home, people said the house died. But — Harper Lee

I've become one of those people who prowl around at night in their cars. God, I am the town's Boo Radley, just like in To Kill A Mockingbird. — Kathryn Stockett

Summer, and he watches his children's heart break. Autumn again and Boo's children needed him. Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough. — Harper Lee

And then, unbidden, seemingly out of nowhere, a thought or image arrives. Some will float into your head like goldfish, lovely, bright, orange, and weightless, and you follow them like a child at an aquarium that was thought to be without fish. Others will step of the shadows like Boo Radley and make you catch your breath or take a step backward. They're often so rich, these unbidden thoughts, and so clear that they feel indelible. But I say write them all down anyway. — Anne Lamott

law tends more and more to be grounded upon the maxim that every citizen is, by nature, a traitor, a libertine, and a scoundrel. In order to dissuade him from his evil-doing the police power is extended until it surpasses anything ever heard of in the oriental monarchies of antiquity. - H. L. MENCKEN, NOTES ON DEMOCRACY — Radley Balko

Radley rolled his eyes. He actually rolled his eyes at my father. Alpha of the south-central territory and head of the Territorial Council. Sure, I did that all the time but I'd also peed on his lap when I was two. No one else got away with such disrespect toward an Alpha, which meant Radley either didn't know who my father was, or didn't care — Rachel Vincent

I had never thought about it, but summer was Dill by the fishpool smoking string, Dill's eyes alive with complicated plans to make Boo Radley emerge; summer was the swiftness with which Dill would reach up and kiss me when Jem was not looking, the longings we sometimes felt each other feel. With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable ... - Scout Finch — Harper Lee

Mayella Ewell must have been the loneliest person in the world. She was even lonelier than Boo Radley, who had not been out of the house in twenty-five years. — Harper Lee

Atticus sat looking at the floor for a long time. Finally he raised his head. "Scout," he said, "Mr. Ewell fell on his knife. Can you possibly understand?"
Atticus looked like he needed cheering up. I ran to him and hugged him and kissed him with all my might. "Yes sir, I understand," I reassured him. "Mr. Tate was right."
Atticus disengaged himself and looked at me. "What do you mean?"
"Well, it'd be sort of like shootin' a mockingbird, wouldn't it?"
Atticus put his face in my hair and rubbed it. When he got up and walked across the porch into the shadows, his youthful step had returned. Before he went inside the house, he stopped in front of Boo Radley. "Thank you for my children, Arthur." he said. — Harper Lee

Please do not devour me, I wish to remain Boo Radley. — Angela Marie Suor

There was a shared sigh as the boys ran off behind Radley, thanking God for not killing them, and telling him how they'd be better people and do their homework from now on. — Joseph Eastwood

For my first week as a new boy at Radley College, back in the summer of 1979, I was followed around by a film crew. — James Lovegrove