"Atticus Finch" is a fictional character of Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus is a lawyer and resident of the fictional Maycomb County, Alabama, and the father of Jeremy "Jem" Finch and Jean Louise "Scout" Finch. Lee based the character on her own father, Amasa Coleman Lee, an Alabama lawyer who, like Atticus Finch, represented black defendants in a highly publicized criminal trial. Book Magazine's list The 100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900 lists Finch as the 7th best fictional character of 20th century literature. In 2003, Atticus Finch, as portrayed by Gregory Peck in the To Kill a Mockingbird (film)/1962 film adaptation, was voted by the American Film Institute to be the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains/greatest hero in American film.

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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, but sometimes you do.

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There's a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep 'em all away from you. That's never possible.

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