Harper Lee Quotes

Harper Lee Quotes

With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable.

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.

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.

I wonder how much of the day I spend just callin' after you.

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.

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.

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

Atticus, he was real nice."

"Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Ladies pick funny things to be proud of.

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.

Просто есть такие люди, они... они чересчур много думают о том свете и потому никак не науч%D

But sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a bottle of whiskey the the hand . . .

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.

You rarely win, but sometimes you do.

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

Now you tell your father not to teach you any more. It's best to begin reading with a fresh mind. You tell him I'll take over from here and try to undo the damage-

We can't always have our druthers.

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

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.

Don't you oh well me,sir," Miss Maudie replied, recognizing Jem's fatalistic noises, "you are not old enough to appreciate what I said.

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

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.

People have a habit of doing everyday things even under the oddest conditions.

Persecution comes from people who are prejudiced.

всякая толпа состоит из людей.

Одни только дураки гордятся своими талантами.
(Мисс Моди Эткинсон - Глазастику Финч)

With him, life was routine, without him, life was unbearable.

With him was routine, but without him it was unbearable.

Peki, niçin bize en gizli sırrını açmıştı? Nedenini sordum.
-Çünkü siz çocuksunuz. Anlarsınız.

Jack: Atticus, you’ve never laid a hand on her.
Atticus: I admit that. So far I've been able to get by with threats. Jack, she minds me as well as she can. Doesn't come up to scratch half the time, but she tries.
Jack: That's not the answer.
Atticus: No, the answer is she knows I know she tries. That's what makes the difference.

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.

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

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

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?

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

Share Page

Harper Lee Wiki

Harper Lee At Amazon