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Harper Lee Quotes

Nelle Harper Lee , better known by her pen name Harper Lee, was an American novelist widely known for To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960. Immediately successful, it won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and has become a classic of modern American literature. Though Lee had only published this single book, in 2007 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contribution to literature. Additionally, Lee received numerous honorary degrees, though she declined to speak on those occasions. She was also known for assisting her close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood . Capote was the basis for the character Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird.

The plot and characters of To Kill a Mockingbird are loosely based on Lee's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936, when she was 10 years old. The novel deals with the irrationality of adult attitudes towards race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s, as depicted through the eyes of two children. The novel was inspired by racist attitudes in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama.

Another novel, Go Set a Watchman, was written in the mid-1950s and published in July 2015 as a "sequel", though it was later confirmed to be To Kill a Mockingbird's first draft.

✵ 28. April 1926 – 19. February 2016
Harper Lee photo

Works

Go Set a Watchman
Harper Lee: 142 quotes25 likes

Famous Harper Lee Quotes

“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

“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)

“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.

“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)

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)

“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

“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

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

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)

“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)

“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

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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

“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

“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.

“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

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.

“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.

“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.

“It's not time to worry yet”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“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

“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

“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

“Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself… It's a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent.”

Harper Lee

“As a reader I loathe introductions… Introductions inhibit pleasure, they kill the joy of anticipation, they frustrate curiosity.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“That boy is your company. And if he wants to eat up that tablecloth, you let him, you hear?”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“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.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“There are some men in this world who are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father's one of them.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Every man’s island, Jean Louise, every man’s watchman, is his conscience. There is no such thing as a collective conscious.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 2, ch. 12
Jean Louise (Scout) Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

“Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they're not attracting attention with it, hotheadedness isn't.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

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

“Don’t talk like that, Dill,” said Aunt Alexandra. “It’s not becoming to a child. It’s – cynical.”

“I ain’t cynical, Miss Alexandra. Tellin’ the truth’s not cynical, is it?”

“The way you tell it, it is.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Try fighting with your head for a change…
it's a good one, even if it does resist learning.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“[T]he time your friends need you is when they’re wrong, Jean Louise. They don’t need you when they’re right”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“I don't want to hear any words like that while I'm here. Scout, you'll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to grow up to be a lady, don't you?'

I said not particularly.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“As you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to others, and don't think you are the most important being on earth. Rich or poor, you then can look anyone in the eye and say, 'I'm probably no better than you, but I'm certainly your equal.”

Harper Lee

“I'm little but I'm old.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place he’ll look for his lessons.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“Remember this also: it’s always easy to look back and see what we were, yesterday, ten years ago. It is hard to see what we are. If you can master that trick, you’ll get along.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“A man can condemn his enemies, but it’s wiser to know them.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Jean Louise (Scout) Finch
Pt. 2, ch. 16
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

“Dill?"
Mm?"
Why do you reckon Boo Radleys 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 book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Some negroes lie, some are immoral, some negro men are not be trusted around women - black and white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

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