Harper Lee Quotes page 2

“I wonder how much of the day I spend just callin' after you.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“The book to read is not the one that thinks for you but the one which makes you think.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“You can't really get to know a person until you get in their shoes and walk around in them.”

“I shall never marry, Atticus."
"Why?"
"I might have children.”

Pt. 2, ch. 31
Jean Louise (Scout) Finch
Variant: Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough.

“People don’t like to have somebody knowing more than they do. It aggravates them.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“There's just some kind of men you have to shoot before you can say hidy to 'em. Even then, they ain't worth the bullet it takes to shoot 'em.”

Pt. 2, ch. 12
Calpurnia
Variant: Folks don’t like to have somebody around knowin’ more than they do. It aggravates ‘em.
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: Folks don’t like to have somebody around knowin’ more than they do. It aggravates ‘em. You’re not gonna change any of them by talkin’ right, they’ve got to want to learn themselves, and when they don’t want to learn there’s nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language.

“Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“If you did not want much, there was plenty.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“Scout, I´m telling you for the last time, shut your trap or go home - I declare to the Lord you´re gettin´ more like a girl every day!”
With that, I had no option but to join them.”

“I need a watchman to tell me this is what a man says but this is what he means, to draw a line down the middle and say here is this justice and there is that justice and make me understand the difference.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowing.”

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“You see they could never, never understand that I live like I do because that's the way I want to live.”

“When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Sometimes we have to kill a little so we can live.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Don’t you study about other folks’s business till you take care of your own.”

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives.”

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“Now, 75 years [after], in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books.

[Open Letter,, July 2006]”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Nothin’s real scary except in books.”

“One must lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one can't do anything about them.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Autumn was her happiest season.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“I try to give'em a reason, you see. It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason.”

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“The only thing I’m afraid of about this country is that its government will someday become so monstrous that the smallest person in it will be trampled underfoot, and then it wouldn’t be worth living in.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“But a man who has lived by truth—and you have believed in what he has lived—he does not leave you merely wary when he fails you, he leaves you with nothing. I think that is why I’m nearly out of my mind.”

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“I came to the conclusion that people were just peculiar, I withdrew from them, and never thought about them until I was forced to.”

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“In Maycomb, if one went for a walk with no definite purpose in mind, it was correct to believe one's mind incapable of definite purpose.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“I'm Charles Baker Harris… I can read”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Talking to Francis gave me the sensation of settling slowly to the bottom of the ocean.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Courage is when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Finders were keepers unless title was proven.”

Variant: Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“I was not so sure, but Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that’s why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off and find some to play with.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Don’t push her. Let her go at her own speed. Push her and every mule in the county’d be easier to live with.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Sometimes it’s better to bend the law a little in special cases.”

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“Atticus---"… said Jem bleakly. "How could they do it, how could they?"
"I don't know, but they did it. They've done it before & they did it tonight & they'll do it again & when they do it--- seems that only children weep.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“I was taught never to take advantage of anybody who was less fortunate than myself, whether he be less fortunate in brains, wealth, or social position; it meant anybody…”

Pt. 2, ch. 22
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: "I think I'll be a clown when I get grown," said Dill. "Yes, sir, a clown.... 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."

“In other words, all I want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama”

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“Long ago, in a burst of friendliness, Aunty and Uncle Jimmy produced a son named Henry…”

“You can pet him, Mr. Arthur. He's asleep…”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hands of another.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“I guess it’s like an airplane: they’re the drag and we’re the thrust, together we make the thing fly. Too much of us and we’re nose-heavy, too much of them and we’re tail-heavy—it’s a matter of balance.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“I didn't know how you were going to do it, but from now on I'll never worry about what'll become of you, son, you'll always have an idea.”

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“When stalking one’s prey, it is best to take one’s time. Say nothing, and as sure as eggs he will become curious and emerge.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“I just thought you'd like to know I can read. You got anything needs readin' I can do it.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Nothing is more deadly than a deserted, waiting street.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Go away, the old buildings said. There is no place for you here. You are not wanted. We have secrets.”

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape; but most of all, summer was Dill.”

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“What does a bigot do when he meets someone who challenges his opinions? He doesn’t give. He stays rigid. Doesn’t even try to listen, just lashes out.”

Variant: summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screeneed porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape.
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird