Dill Harris represents the innocence theme in To Kill A Mockingbird.
He’s one of the most intriguing characters in Harper Lee’s novel. He is funny, bright, and empathetic beyond his years.
Dill also has a way with words. This post explores some of the most memorable Dill Harris quotes from To Kill a Mockingbird.
To Kill A Mockingbird Quotes With Page Numbers
Dill Harris Character Analysis
Dill Harris is Jem and Scout Finch’s only friend and comes to Maycomb every summer.
Dill is described as having “snow white hair, stuck to his head like duck fluff,” and he is very short. He lacks the security of family love and is unwanted and unloved by his parents.
Dill’s primary goal is to get Boo Radley out of his house, and he is courageous enough to cry during the trial. Throughout the novel, the author manages to grasp the readers’ hearts and make them understand Dill’s personality, morals, ethics, and personal values.
Direct Dill Harris Quotes With Page Numbers
“When Dill reduced Dracula to dust, and Jem said the show sounded better than the book, I asked Dill where his father was: “You ain’t said anything about him.”
“I haven’t got one.”
“Is he dead?”
“No…”
“Then if he’s not dead you’ve got one, haven’t you?”
Dill blushed and Jem told me to hush, a sure sign that Dill had been studied and found acceptable.
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, (Characters: Scout Finch and Dill Harris), Chapter 1, Page 8
“Let’s try to make him come out,” said Dill. “I’d like to see what he looks like.”
Jem said if Dill wanted to get himself killed, all he had to do was go up and knock
on the front door.”~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, (Characters: Dill Harris and Scout Finch), Chapter 1, Page 14
“You’re still scared,” murmured Dill patiently.
Jem wanted Dill to know once and for all that he wasn’t scared of anything: “It’s just that I can’t think of a way to make him come out without him gettin‘ us.”
Besides, Jem had his little sister to think of.
When he said that, I knew he was afraid.”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, (Characters: Dill Harris, Jem and Scout Finch), Chapter 1, Page 15
Dill’s father was taller than ours, he had a black beard (pointed), and was president of the L & N Railroad. “I helped the engineer for a while,” said Dill, yawning.
“In a pig’s ear you did, Dill. Hush,” said Jem. “What’ll we play today?”
“Tom and Sam and Dick,” said Dill. “Let’s go in the front yard.” Dill wanted the Rover Boys because there were three respectable parts. He was clearly tired of being our character man.
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, (Characters: Dill Harris and Scout Finch as the narrator), Chapter 4, Page 40
“Dill said, “We’re askin‘ him real politely to come out sometimes, and tell us what he does in there—we said we wouldn’t hurt him and we’d buy him an ice cream.”
“You all’ve gone crazy, he’ll kill us!”
Dill said, “It’s my idea. I figure if he’d come out and sit a spell with us he might feel better.”
“How do you know he don’t feel good?”
“Well how’d you feel if you’d been shut up for a hundred years with nothin‘ but cats to eat? I bet he’s got a beard down to here-” “Like your daddy’s?”
“He ain’t got a beard, he-” Dill stopped, as if trying to remember.”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, (Characters: Dill Harris and Scout Finch as the narrator), Chapter 5, Page 52
“Dill recited this narrative: having been bound in chains and left to die in the basement (there were basements in Meridian) by his new father, who disliked him, and secretly kept alive on raw field peas by a passing farmer who heard his cries for help (the good man poked a bushel pod by pod through the ventilator), Dill worked himself free by pulling the chains from the wall. Still in wrist manacles, he wandered two miles out of Meridian where he discovered a small animal show and was immediately engaged to wash the camel. He traveled with the show all over Mississippi until his infallible sense of direction told him he was in Abbott County, Alabama, just across the river from Maycomb. He walked the rest of the way.”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, (Characters: Dill Harris and Scout Finch), Chapter 14, Page 158-59
“How’d you get here?” asked Jem. He had taken thirteen dollars from his mother’s purse, caught the nine o’clock from Meridian and got off at Maycomb Junction. He had walked ten or eleven of the fourteen miles to Maycomb, off the highway in the scrub bushes lest the authorities be seeking him, and had ridden the remainder of the way clinging to the backboard of a cotton wagon. He had been under the bed for two hours, he thought; he had heard us in the diningroom, and the clink of forks on plates nearly drove him crazy. He thought Jem and I would never go to bed; he had considered emerging and helping me beat Jem, as Jem had grown far taller, but he knew Mr. Finch would break it up soon, so he thought it best to stay where he was.”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, (Characters: Dill Harris, Scout Finch, and Jem Finch), Chapter 14, Page 159
“Dill’s eyes flickered at Jem, and Jem looked at the floor. Then he rose and broke the remaining code of our childhood. He went out of the room and down the hall.
“Atticus,” his voice was distant, “can you come here a minute, sir?”
Beneath its sweat-streaked dirt Dill’s face went white. I felt sick. Atticus was in the doorway.
He came to the middle of the room and stood with his hands in his pockets, looking down at
Dill. I finally found my voice: “It’s okay, Dill. When he wants you to know somethin‘,
he tells you.”Dill looked at me. “I mean it’s all right,” I said. “You know he wouldn’t bother you, you know you ain’t scared of Atticus.”
“I’m not scared…” Dill muttered…
Dill stared at my father’s retreating figure.
“He’s tryin‘ to be funny,” I said. “He means take a bath. See there, I told you he wouldn’t bother you.”
Jem was standing in a corner of the room, looking like the traitor he was. “Dill, I had to tell him,” he said. “You can’t run three hundred miles off without your mother knowin‘.”
We left him without a word.”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, (Characters: Dill Harris and Scout Finch), Chapter 14, Page 163
“Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy head. He could read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of his own inventions. He could add and subtract faster than lightning, but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept, waiting to be gathered like morning lilies. He was slowly talking himself to sleep and taking me with him, but in the quietness of his foggy island there rose the faded image of a gray house with sad brown doors.
“Dill?”
“Mm?”
“Why do you reckon Boo Radley’s never run off?”
Dill sighed a long sigh and turned away from me.
“Maybe he doesn’t have anywhere to run off to…”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, (Characters: Dill Harris and Scout Finch), Chapter 14, Page 163
“It was just him I couldn’t stand,” Dill said.
“Who, Tom?”
“That old Mr. Gilmer doin‘ him thataway, talking so hateful to him—”
“Dill, that’s his job. Why, if we didn’t have prosecutors—well, we couldn’t have defense attorneys, I reckon.”
Dill exhaled patiently. “I know all that, Scout. It was the way he said it made me sick, plain sick.”
“He’s supposed to act that way, Dill, he was cross—”
“He didn’t act that way when—”
“Dill, those were his own witnesses.”
“Well, Mr. Finch didn’t act that way to Mayella and old man Ewell when he crossexamined
them. The way that man called him ‘boy’ all the time an‘ sneered at him, an’ looked around at the jury every time he answered—”
“Well, Dill, after all he’s just a Negro.”
“I don’t care one speck. 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.”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, (Characters: Dill and Scout Finch), Chapter 19, Page 225-26
“That’s just Mr. Gilmer’s way, Dill, he does ‘em all that way. You’ve never seen him get good’n down on one yet. Why, when—well, today Mr. Gilmer seemed to me like he wasn’t half trying. They do ’em all that way, most lawyers, I mean.”
“Mr. Finch doesn’t.”
“He’s not an example, Dill, he’s—” I was trying to grope in my memory for a sharp phrase of Miss Maudie Atkinson’s. I had it: “He’s the same in the courtroom as he is on the public streets.”
“That’s not what I mean,” said Dill.
“I know what you mean, boy,” said a voice behind us. We thought it came from the tree-trunk, but it belonged to Mr. Dolphus Raymond. He peered around the trunk at us. “You aren’t thin-hided, it just makes you sick, doesn’t it?”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, (Characters: Dill and Scout Finch), Chapter 19, Page 226
“I think I’ll be a clown when I get grown,’ said Dill.
Jem and I stopped in our tracks.
Yes sir, a clown,’ he said. ‘There ain’t one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I’m gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.’
You got it backwards, Dill,’ said Jem. ‘Clowns are sad, it’s folks that laugh at them.’
Well I’m gonna be a new kind of clown. I’m gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, (Characters: Dill and Jem), Chapter 22, Page 247
Quotes About Dill Harris With Page Numbers
“Dill was a curiosity. He wore blue linen shorts that buttoned to his shirt, his hair was snow white and stuck to his head like duckfluff; he was a year my senior but I towered over him. As he told us the old tale his blue eyes would lighten and darken; his laugh was sudden and happy; he habitually pulled at a cowlick in the center of his forehead.”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, about Dill Harris (Character: Scout as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 5
“Thereafter the summer passed in routine contentment. Routine contentment was: improving our treehouse that rested between giant twin chinaberry trees in the back yard, fussing, running through our list of dramas based on the works of Oliver Optic, Victor Appleton, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. (…) Thus we came to know Dill as a pocket Merlin, whose head teemed with eccentric plans, strange longings, and quaint fancies.”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, about Dill Harris (Character: Scout as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 8
“Summer was on the way; Jem and I awaited it with impatience. Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the tree house; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape; but most of all, summer was Dill.”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, about Dill Harris (Character: Scout Finch), Chapter 4, Page 38
“Dill was in hearty agreement with this plan of action. Dill was becoming something of a trial anyway, following Jem about. 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. They spent days together in the treehouse plotting and planning, calling me only when they needed a third party.”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, about Dill Harris (Character: Scout Finch), Chapter 5, Page 46
“Because nobody could see them at night, because Atticus would be so deep in a book he wouldn’t hear the Kingdom coming, because if Boo Radley killed them they’d miss school instead of vacation, and because it was easier to see inside a dark house in the dark than in the daytime, did I understand?
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, about Dill Harris (Character: Scout Finch as the narrator), Chapter 6, Page 58
“Then I saw the shadow. It was the shadow of a man with a hat on. At first I thought it was a tree, but there was no wind blowing, and tree-trunks never walked. The back porch was bathed in moonlight, and the shadow, crisp as toast, moved across the porch toward Jem. Dill saw it next. He put his hands to his face. When it crossed Jem, Jem saw it. He put his arms over his head and went rigid.”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, about Dill Harris (Character: Scout Finch as the narrator), Chapter 6, Pages 59, 60
“Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy head. He could read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of his own inventions. He could add and subtract faster than lightning, but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept, waiting to be gathered like morning lilies.”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, about Dill Harris (Character: Scout Finch as narrator), Chapter 14, Page 163
Dill crying quote
“Cry about what, Mr. Raymond?” Dill’s maleness was beginning to assert itself.
“Cry about the simple hell people give other people—without even thinking. Cry about the hell white people give colored folks, without even stopping to think that they’re people, too.”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Dill Harris, Chapter 20, Page 229
Dill Clown Quote
“I think I’ll be a clown when I get grown,’ said Dill.
Jem and I stopped in our tracks.
Yes sir, a clown,’ he said. ‘There ain’t one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I’m gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.’
You got it backwards, Dill,’ said Jem. ‘Clowns are sad, it’s folks that laugh at them.’
Well I’m gonna be a new kind of clown. I’m gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, about Dill Harris (Characters: Dill and Jem), Chapter 22, Page 247
What does Dill symbolize in TKAM?
In To Kill a Mockingbird, Dill symbolizes childhood innocence and a sense of adventure. As an outsider to Maycomb, he is not instilled with the racist sentiments prevalent in the town and maintains his innocence throughout the novel.
What does Dill brag about?
Dill brags about his reading ability, but Jem is unimpressed because Scout has been reading since birth. However, Dill manages to hook Jem and Scout with his creative stories, like seeing Dracula at the movies.
Why is Dill an important character?
Dill is an important character in To Kill a Mockingbird because he represents the innocence and naivety of childhood. He symbolizes curiosity and imagination, and his presence adds a sense of adventure and excitement to the story.
Additionally, Dill’s friendship with Scout and Jem helps develop their characters and understanding of the world around them.
What does Dill believe?
Dill believes that he can challenge and change the norms of the world. He possesses a creative mind and imagination, which he uses to impress his friends. Dill’s innocence and ignorance allow him to see things differently.
What motivates Dill to cry?
Dill’s emotions took over when he broke into tears during Tom Robinson’s trial. He was upset because he saw Mr. Gilmer acting rudely and judgmentally towards Tom Robinson, which made him sick.
Dill hates the attitude of many people towards Tom and black people. When he was younger, he would have ignored and not thought about what Gilmer said, but now that he is a little older and glued to the court case, he sees the injustice of the situation.
Tom Robinson Quotes With Page Numbers
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