Home > Author > Harper Lee
1 " With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable. "
― Harper Lee , To Kill a Mockingbird
2 " 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. "
3 " 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. "
4 " 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
5 " 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. "
6 " Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. "
7 " 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. "
8 " 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. "
9 " 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. "
10 " 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. "
11 " 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. "
12 " 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. "
13 " Everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowing. "
14 " Never, never, never, on cross-examination ask a witness a question you don't already know the answer to. "
15 " Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. "
16 " You deny them hope... You are telling them that Jesus loves them, but not much. "
17 " 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. "
18 " Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends. "
― Harper Lee , Go Set a Watchman
19 " 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. "
20 " You rarely win, but sometimes you do. "
