11.20.2012

"You rarely win"

Atticus Finch is a great man. He really would be, if he were real. He knows what courage is. I have read To Kill a Mockingbird at least a billion times. There is a simple quote that really gets me.

"Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. It's knowing you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win…"

People have seen me persist at one thing. I have been told that it is hopeless. I have been told that my time is not being spent well; that (to use a TKAM reference) Tom Robinson cannot be saved, so why even try? Honestly, until tonight, I never thought of myself as a courageous person. I mean I have always hoped that I was brave, but I didn't know. However, I am.

I knew from the beginning that I was licked. I knew it. There was no denying it. Tom was as good as dead as soon as Mayella Ewell asked him into her yard. But I did it anyway. Why? Because Atticus knew what he was talking about.

"You rarely win, but sometimes you do."

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