Harper Lee

Quotes

• “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 ...”
• “Each child was supposed to clip an item from a newspaper, absorb its contents, and reveal them to the class. This practi...”
• “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 d...”
• “She's like a national treasure. She's someone who has made a difference … with this book. The book is still as strong as...”
• “And it's certainly bad, but when a man spends his relief checks on green whiskey his children have a way of crying from ...”
• “I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system - that is no ideal to me, it is ...”
• “As I inched sluggishly along the treadmill of the Maycomb County school system, I could not help receiving the impressio...”
• “Folks don't like to have somebody around knowin' more than they do. It aggravates 'em. You're not gonna change any of th...”
• “Atticus said that Jem was trying hard to forget something, but what he was really doing was storing it away for a while,...”
• “...he said if enough people-a stadium full, maybe-were to concentrate on one thing, such as setting a tree afire in the ...”
• “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...”
• “Letter to the editor of The Richmond News Leader (14 January 1966), in response to the Hanover County School Board's dec...”
• “An' they chased him 'n' never could catch him 'cause they didn't know what he looked like, an' Atticus, when they finall...”
• “Veronique Peck, widow of Gregory Peck, as quoted in "Harper Lee raises her low profile for a friend; The author of 'To K...”
• “They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can li...”
• “Slowly but surely I began to see the pattern of questions: from questions that Mr.Gilmer did not deem sufficiently irrel...”
• “So it took an eight-year-old child to bring 'em to their senses.... That proves something - that a gang of wild animals ...”
• “When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness' sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are childre...”
• “Apparently, Mayella's recital had given her confidence, but it was not her father's brash kind: there was something stea...”
• “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 m...”
• “Well, they're Southern people, and if they know you are working at home they think nothing of walking right in for coffe...”
• “When the new wore off his grandfather's watch, and carrying it became a day's burdensome task, Jem no longer felt the ne...”
• “Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Ju...”
• “Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they're not attracting attention ...”
• “She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there was some skill invo...”
• “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin an...”
• “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 does...”
• “Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were i...”
• “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...”
• “In the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth a...”
• “Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to unde...”
• “I remember the lasting impression that Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird had on me. I read that book again every decade...”
• “That's because you can't hold something in your mind but a little while, said Jem. It's different with grown folks, we-”
• “Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
• “On why she has done her best creative thinking while playing golf, as quoted in Time (12 May 1980)”
• “Well if you don't want me to grow up talkin' that way, why do you send me to school?”
• “Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”
• “I crossed a threshold of reader pride after finishing "To Kill a Mockingbird.”
• “...before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself.”
• “Mount Everest: throughout my early life, she was cold and there.”
• “People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.”
• “I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.”
• “Jean Louise (Scout) Finch & Atticus Finch”
• “To Kill a Mockingbird quotes and analysis”
• “Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.”
• “Atticus Finch & Maudie Atkinson”
• “Epigraph, quoting Charles Lamb”
• “Jean Louise (Scout) Finch”
• “Amy Tan interview (2013)”
• “...brown but backwards”