Harper Lee Quotes (142 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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Go Set a Watchman

Harper Lee

Harper Lee: 142 quotes 24 likes

Famous Harper Lee Quotes

“Turtles don't feel, stupid," said Jem.

"Were you ever a turtle, huh?”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Most people are real nice, when you finally see them.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 2, ch. 31
Jean Louise (Scout) Finch & Atticus Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: "An' they chased him 'n' never could catch him 'cause they didn't know what he looked like, an' Atticus, when they finally saw him, why he hadn't done any of those things... Atticus, he was real nice..."
"Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them."

“No, everybody's gotta learn, nobody's born knowin'. That Walter's as smart as he can be, he just gets held back sometimes because he has to stay out and help his daddy. Nothin's wrong with him. Naw, Jem, I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“You just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don't you let 'em get your goat. Try fightin' with your head for a change.
-Atticus Finch”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Variant: You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

“Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee Quotes about people

“People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 1, ch. 10
Miss Maudie
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

“Atticus said naming people after Confederate generals made slow steady drinkers.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“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.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 1, ch. 10
Atticus Finch & Maudie Atkinson
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: "I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.
“Your father's right," she said. "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."

“A mob's always made up of people, no matter what. Mr. Cunningham was part of a mob last night, but he was still a man. Every mob in every little Southern town is always made up of people you know--doesn't say much for them, does it?”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“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 book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee: Trending quotes

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 1, ch. 2
Jean Louise (Scout) Finch
Variant: I never loved reading until I feared I would lose it. One does not love breathing.
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Love , Fear , Reading

“It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 1, ch. 11
Jean Louise (Scout) Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Father's Day , For Father , Hate , War

“They're ugly, but those are the facts of life.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Life

Harper Lee Quotes

“I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 2, ch. 23
Jean Louise (Scout) Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Thinking

“You can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family, an' they're still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge 'em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don't.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Family

“Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

“Are you proud of yourself tonight that you have insulted a total stranger whose circumstances you know nothing about?”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Things are never as bad as they seem.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Lie , Personality

“Atticus said that Jem was trying hard to forget something, but what he was really doing was storing it away for a while, until enough time passed. Then he would be able to think about it and sort things out. When he was able to think about it, Jem would be himself again.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Thinking , Time , Forgetting

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
- Atticus Finch”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 1, ch. 11
Atticus Finch
Variant: 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.
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.

Courageous , Idea , Courage

“The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Personality

“Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions… but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 1, ch. 11
Atticus Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Thinking , Personality

“With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Life

“It's never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn't hurt you.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt.1, ch.11
Atticus Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Thinking , Hurt , Personality

“When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness' sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, an evasion simply muddles 'em.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 1, ch. 9
Atticus Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Children

“Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“We're paying the highest tribute you can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It's that simple.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year.
Scout”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Scouting

“Pass the damn ham, please.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Things are always better in the morning.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“There are just some kind of men who-who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Men , World , Business , Learning

“I’m no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system — that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 2, ch. 20
Atticus Finch
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: I’m no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system — that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up.

Reality

“A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Men

“The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 2, ch. 23
Atticus Finch
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it — whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.

People , Color , Way , Box

“Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 2, ch. 25
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: In the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.

Dead

“It's not time to worry yet”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Time

“Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin'.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Faith

“They've done it before and they'll do it again and when they do it -- seems that only the children weep. Good night.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Variant: I don't know, but they did it. They've done it before and they did it tonight and they'll do it again and when they do it--seems that only children weep.
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Children , Night

“Ladies in bunches always filled me with vague apprehension and a firm desire to be elsewhere.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird