144 Quotes & Sayings By Harper Lee

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

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

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

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. Harper Lee

Naw, Jem. I think that there is just one kind of folks. Folks."Jen turned and punched his pillow. WHen he settle back his face was cloudy. He was going in to one of his declines, and I grew wary. His brows came together; his mouth became a thin line. He was silent for a while. That is what I thought, too, " he said at last, "when I was your age. If there is just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go ut of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I am beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley stayed shut up in the house all this time..it's because he wants to stay inside. Harper Lee

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

Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)... 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

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. Harper Lee

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 faster than adults, and evasion simply muddles 'em. Harper Lee

Everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowing. Harper Lee

Never, never, never, on cross-examination ask a witness a question you don't already know the answer to. Harper Lee

Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. Harper Lee

How could this be so, I wondered, as I read Mr. Underwood's editorial. Senseless killing-- Tom had been given due process of law to the day of his death; he had been tried openly and convicted by twelve good men and true; my father had fought for him all the way. Then Mr. Underwood's meaning became clear: Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but 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. Harper Lee

Thomas Jefferson once said that all men are created equal (..). There is a tendency (..) for certain people to use this phrase out of context, to satisfy all conditions. The most ridiculous example I can think of is that the people who run public education promote the stupid and idle along with the industrious-because all men are created equal, educators will gravely tell you, the children left behind suffer terrible feelings of inferiority. We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe-some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they're born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others-some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men. . Harper Lee

First of all, " he said, "if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. 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

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

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read Harper Lee

She knew full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking, she persisted in breaking it. Harper Lee

...baby, it's never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows how poor that person is, it doesn't hurt you. So don't let Mrs Dubose get you down. She had enough troubles or her own. Harper Lee

Alexandra had been married for thirty-three years; if it had made any impression on her one way or another, she never showed it. Harper Lee

Honey, the sun rises and sets with that Bill of hers. Everything he says is Gospel. She loves her man."" Is that what loving your man is?"" Has a lot to do with it." Jean Louise said, "You mean losing your own identity, don't you?"" In a way, yes, " said Henry. "Then I doubt if I shall ever marry. Harper Lee

We’re so rarely called on to be Christians, but when we are, we’ve got men like Atticus to go for us. Harper Lee

If we followed our feelings all the time, we'd be like cats chasin' their tails. Harper Lee

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

Thought you could kill my Snow-on-the-Mountain, did you? Well, Jessie says that the top's growing back out. Next time you'll know how to do it right, won't you? You'll pull it up by the roots, won't you? Harper Lee

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 evasionquicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles ‘em. No, you had the right answer this afternoon, but the wrong reasons. Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they’re notattracting attention with it. Hotheadedness isn’t. Harper Lee

People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for, and they have a right to subject their children to it. Harper Lee

He might have hurt me a little, ' Atticus conceded, 'but sn, you'll understand folks a little better when you're older. A mob's always made up of people, no matter what. Mr Cunnignham was part of a mob last night, but he ws still a man. Every mob in every little Souhern town is always made up of people you know - doesn't say much for them, does it?'' I'll say ot, ' said Jem.'So it took an eight-year-old child to bring 'em to their senses, didn't it?' said Atticus. 'That proves something - that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human. Hmp, maybe we need a police force of children. Harper Lee

A boy trudged down the sidewalk dragging a fishing pole behind him. A man stood waiting with his hands on his hips. Summertime, and his children played in the front yard with their friend, enacting a strange little drama of their own invention. It was fall, and his children fought on the sidewalk in front of Mrs. Dubose's. Fall, and his children trotted to and fro around the corner, the day's woes and triumphs on their faces. They stopped at an oak tree, delighted, puzzled, apprehensive. Winter, and his children shivered at the front gate, silhouetted against a blazing house. Winter, and a man walked into the street, dropped his glasses, and shot a dog. Summer, and he watched his children's heart break. Autumn again, and Boo's children needed him. 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. Harper Lee

There was nowhere to go, but I turned to go and met Atticus's vest front. I buried my head in it and listened to the small internal noises that went on behind the light blue cloth: his watch ticking, the faint crackle of his starched shirt, the soft sound of his breathing.' Your stomach's growling, ' I said.' I know it, ' he said. Harper Lee

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. Harper Lee

It had never fully occurred to Jean Louise that she was a girl: her life had been one of reckless, pummeling activity; fighting, football, climbing, keeping up with Jem, and besting anyone her own age in any contest requiring physical prowess. Harper Lee

She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance, but I cannot pity her: she is white. She knew full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking, she persisted in breaking it. She persisted, and her subsequent reaction is something that all of us have known at one time or another. She did something every child has done-she tried to put the evidence of her offense away from her. But in this case she was no child hiding stolen contraband: she struck out at her victim-of necessity she must put him away from her-he must be removed from her presence, from this world. She must destroy the evidence of her offense. . Harper Lee

I just know Maycomb. I'm not in the least sensitive about it, but good Lord, I'm certainly aware of it. Harper Lee

So far nothing in your life has interfered with your reasoning process. Harper Lee

Best way to clear the air is to have it all out in the open. Harper Lee

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

If a man says to you, "This is the truth, " and you believe him, and you discover what he says is not the truth, you are disappointed and you make sure you will not be caught out by him again. But a man who has lived by the 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. Harper Lee

If a man says to you, "This is the truth, " and you believe him, and you discover what he says is not the truth, you are disappointed and you make sure you will not be caught by him again. But a man who has lived the 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. Harper Lee

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

Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy head. He could read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of his own inventions. Harper Lee

There are just some kind of men 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

I mean this: every time I come home, I feel like I'm coming back to the world, and when I leave Macomb it's like leaving the world. Harper Lee

Boo and I walked up the steps to the porch. His fingers found the doorknob. He gently released my hand, opened the door, enter inside, and shut the door behind him. I never saw him again. Harper Lee

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.". . "That's what I thought too, " he said at last, "when I was your age. If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time. . it's because he wants to stay inside. Harper Lee

We came to the street light in the corner, and I wondered how many times Dill stood there hugging the fat pole, watching, waiting, hoping. I wondered how many times Jem and I had made this journey, but I entered the Radley front gate for the seecond time in my life. Boo and I walked up the steps to the porch. His fingers found the doorknob. He gently released my hand, opened the door, enter inside, and shut the door behind him. I never saw him again. Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: w had given him nothing, and it made me sad. Harper Lee

Whatever she says to you, it’s your jobnot to let her make you mad. Harper Lee

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

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

They are simple people, most of them, but that doesn't make them subhuman. You are telling them Jesus loves them, but not much. Harper Lee

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

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

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

The only thing I'm afraid of about this country is that it's 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. The only thing in America that is still unique in this tired world is that a man can go as far as his brains will take him or he can go to hell if he wants to, but it won't be that way much longer. Harper Lee

But before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. Harper Lee

There are just some kind of men who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one. Harper Lee

Every man's island, Jean Louise, every man's watchman, is his conscience. There is no such thing as a collective conscience. Harper Lee

Then Mr. Underwood's meaning became clear: Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case. Harper Lee

Whether Maycomb knows it or not, we're paying the highest tribute we can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It's that simple.'' Who?' Aunt Alexandra never knew she was echoing her twelve-year-old nephew.' The handful of people in this town who that that fair play is not marked White Only; the handful of people who say a fair trial is for everybody, not just us; the handful of people with enough humility to think, when they look at a Negro, there but for the Lord's kindness am I. Harper Lee

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... Mockingbirds don't do one thing to but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's garden, 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. Harper Lee

I do my best to love everybody... I'm hard put, sometimes- baby, its never an insult o 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

I mean it takes a certain kind of maturity to live in the South these days. You don't have it yet, but you have a shadow of the beginnings of it. You haven't the humbleness of mind-" "I thought the fear of the Lord was the beginning of wisdom."" It's the same thing. Humility. Harper Lee

Things are always better in the morning. Harper Lee

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

...summer was the swiftness with which Dill would reach up and kiss me when Jem was not looking, the longing we sometimes felt each other feel. With him life was routine; without him life was unbearable. Harper Lee

We can't always have our druthers. Harper Lee

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 Harper Lee

Don't matter who they are, anybody sets foot in this house's yo' comp'ny, and don't you let me catch you remarkin' on their ways like you was so high and and mighty! Yo' folks might be better'n the Cunninghams but it don't count for nothin' the way you're disgracin' 'em. Harper Lee

As Kipling said, that’s another story... Harper Lee

I never deliberately learned to read, but somehow I had been wallowing illicitly in the daily papers. In the long hours of church--was it then I learned? I could not remember not being able to read hymns. Now that I was compelled to think about it, reading was something that just came to me, as learning to fasten the seat of my union suit without looking around, or achieving two bows from a snarl of shoelaces. I could not remember when the lines above Atticus's moving finger separated into words. But I had stared at them all the evenings in my memory, listening to the news of the day, Bills to Be Enacted into Laws, the diaries of Lorenzo Dow--anything Atticus happened to be reading when I crawled into his lap every night. Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing. . Harper Lee

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

...but before I can live with other folks, I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by mojority rule is a person's conscience. Harper Lee

...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

I willed myself to stay awake, but the rain was so soft and the room was so warm and his voice was so deep and his knee was so snug that I slept. Harper Lee

I think there might be a better way, change the law Harper Lee

You confused your father with God. You never saw him as a man with a man’s heart, and a man’s failings — I’ll grant you it may have been hard to see, he makes so few mistakes, but he makes ’em like all of us. You were an emotional cripple, leaning on him, getting answers from him, assuming that your answers would always be his answers. Harper Lee

The white supremacists are really pretty smart. If they can't scare us with the essential inferiority line, they'll wrap it in a miasma of sex, because that's the only thing they know is feared in our fundamentalist hearts down here. Harper Lee

I had never encountered a being who deliberately perpetuated fraud against himself. Harper Lee

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

I wanted you to see something about her– 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 you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew. . Harper Lee

She was the bravest person I ever knew. Harper Lee