Harper Lee Quotes

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.

The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for that.

The things that happen to people we never really know. What happens in houses behind closed doors, what secrets -

People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.

Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.

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.

Things are always better in the morning.

It's not necessary to tell all you know.

Writing is a process of self-discipline you must learn before you can call yourself a writer. There are people who write, but I think they're quite different from people who must write.

...but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself.

Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.

Way back about nineteen-twenty there was a Klan... The Ku Klux's gone... It'll never come back.

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

Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts.

It's not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike--in the second place, folks don't like to have somebody around knowin' more than they do.

Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

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.

People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.

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.

I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.

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

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

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 fighting with your head for a change...

You rarely win, but sometimes you do.

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.

Now...in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, ipods and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books.

My objectives are very limited. I want to do the best I can with the talent God gave me. I hope to goodness that every novel I do gets better and better, not worse and worse.

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.

Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself.

Are you proud of yourself tonight that you have insulted a total stranger whose circumstances you know nothing about?

I think I'll be a clown when I get grown.... 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.

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

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

Characters make their own plot. The dimensions of the characters determine the action of the novel.

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.

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

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.

Ladies pick funny things to be proud of.

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

This time we aren't fighting the Yankees, we're fighting our friends. But remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they're still our friends and this is still our home.

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.

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.

When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness' sake.

I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.

Things are never as bad as they seem.

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

It's not time to worry yet

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.

You've really got to start hitting the books because it's no joke out here.

Mutual defiance made them alike.