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Harper Lee Quotes
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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
Harper Lee: 142   quotes 24   likes

Harper Lee Quotes

“See there?" Jem was scowling triumphantly. "Nothin' to it. I swear, Scout, sometimes you act so much like a girl its mortifyin”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Girl , Scouting

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

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

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.

Shoe , Personality

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

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

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.

People

“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.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Men

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

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

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

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

Harper Lee
Positive

“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.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Home , Girl , Time , Scouting

“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.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Justice , Understanding , Drawing

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

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Way , Understanding

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

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

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

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

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

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

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

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Business , Study

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

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“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]”

Harper Lee
People , Books

“Nothin’s real scary except in books.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Books

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

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Lie , Time

“Autumn was her happiest season.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Autumn , Season

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

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Help

“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.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Personality , Country

“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.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Truth , Thinking

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

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

People

“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.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

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

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Reading

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

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

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.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

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

Courage

“Finders were keepers unless title was proven.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

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.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Hate , People , Imagination , Girl

“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.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Speed

“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.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Children

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

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

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."

“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…”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Wealth

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

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

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

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

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.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

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.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Flying

“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.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Idea

“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.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Time

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

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Reading

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

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Secret

“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.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

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

Color , Sleep , Summer , Season

“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.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman