Harper Lee Quotes

“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, To Kill a Mockingbird

“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. He could add and subtract faster than lightning, but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept, waiting to be gathered like morning lilies.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Atticus---" ...said Jem bleakly. "How could they do it, how could they?"
"I don't know, but they did it. They've done it before & they did it tonight & they'll do it again & when they do it--- seems that only children weep.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“A mob's always made up of people, no matter what. Mr. Cunningham was part of a mob last night, but he was still a man. Every mob in every little Southern town is always made up of people you know--doesn't say much for them, does it?”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“In other words, all I want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama”
― Harper Lee

“For the life of me, I did not understand how he[Atticus] could sit there in cold blood and read a newspaper when his only son stood an excellent chance of being murdered with a Confederate Army relic.”
― Harper Lee

“But things are always better in the morning.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“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, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Had her conduct been more friendly toward me, I would have felt sorry for her. She was a pretty little thing.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between.”
― Harper Lee

“We saw Uncle Jack every Christmas, and every Christmas he yelled across the street for Miss Maudie to come marry him. Miss Mauide would yell back, "Call a little louder, Jack Finch, and they'll hear you the post office, I haven't heard you yet!" Jem and I thought this a strange way to ask for a lady's hand in marriage, but then again Uncle Jack was rather strange.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“I turned to go home. Street lights winked down the street all the way to town. I
had never seen our neighborhood from this angle. There were Miss Maudie’s,
Miss Stephanie’s—there was our house, I could see the porch swing—Miss
Rachel’s house was beyond us, plainly visible. I could even see Mrs. Dubose’s.
I looked behind me. To the left of the brown door was a long shuttered window. I
walked to it, stood in front of it, and turned around. In daylight, I thought, you
could see to the postoffice corner.
Daylight… in my mind, the night faded. It was daytime and the neighborhood
was busy. Miss Stephanie Crawford crossed the street to tell the latest to Miss
Rachel. Miss Maudie bent over her azaleas. It was summertime, and two children
scampered down the sidewalk toward a man approaching in the distance. The man
waved, and the children raced each other to him.
It was still summertime, and the children came closer. A boy trudged down the
sidewalk dragging a fishingpole 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. The
boy helped his sister to her feet, and they made their way home. 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, To Kill a Mockingbird: York Notes for GCSE

“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, To Kill a Mockingbird

“We have travelled into the past and returned to find that our present is not quite the same as we left it. Atticus Finch will never again be the white knight we once thought him.

And yet the mockingbird still sings — no longer a song of innocence, but maybe one of experience; a song that combines sorrow, forgiveness — and, ultimately, a kind of hope.”
― Joanne Harris

“If just for one week in the South would show them some simple, impartial courtesy. I wonder what would happen. Do you think it'd give 'em airs or the beginnings of self-respect? Have you ever been snubbed, Atticus? Do you know how it feels? No, don't tell me they're children and don't feel it: I was a child and felt it, so grown children must feel, too. A real good snub, Atticus, makes you feel like you're too nasty to associate with people. How they're as good as they are now is a mystery to me, after a hundred years of systematic denial that they are human. I wonder what kind of miracle we could work with a week's decency.”
― Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman

“...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, To Kill a Mockingbird

“«Sì, era una signora. Aveva le sue idee, sulle cose, idee molto diverse dalle mie, forse. Figliolo, ti ho detto che anche se tu non avessi perso la testa, quel giorno, ti avrei mandato ugualmente a casa sua. Volevo che tu imparassi una cosa: volevo che tu vedessi cosa è il vero coraggio, tu che credi che sia rappresentato da un uomo col fucile in mano. Aver coraggio significa sapere di essere sconfitti prima di cominciare, e cominciare ugualmente e arrivare sino in fondo, qualsiasi cosa succeda. È raro vincere in questi casi, ma qualche volta succede. La signora Dubose ha vinto. È morta come voleva morire, senza essere schiava né degli uomini né delle cose. Era la persona più coraggiosa che io abbia conosciuto.»”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“His name's Arthur and he's alive.”
― 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

“Blood is a powerful thing, bachem, never forget that.”
― Harper Lee, On Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird

“Jem was twelve. He was difficult to live with, inconsistent, moody. His appetite was appalling, and he told me so many times to stop pestering him I consulted Atticus: "Reckon he's got tapeworm" Atticus said no, Jem was growing. I must be patient with him and disturb him as little as possible.”
― 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

“Line for line, voices followed in simple harmony until the hymn ended in a melancholy
murmur.”
― Harper Lee

“-Tienen derecho a creerlo, ciertamente, y tienen derecho a que se respeten en absoluto sus opiniones -contestó Atticus-, pero antes de poder vivir con otras personas tengo que vivir conmigo mismo. La única cosa que no se rige por la regla de la mayoría es la conciencia de uno.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“IN HONOR OF HARPER LEE, WHOSE NOVEL PLAYS A SIGNIFICANT PART IN "FINDING GRACE" I SHARE THESE LINES:
Violet and I met at our fort at one o’clock. On our way over to Maryann’s we talked about the book, which Vi called T-KAM for short. I wasn’t sure how to ask, but I had to know. “Hey…what’d you think about the part where Scout asks Atticus if he’s a…um…you know, a…ni–Negro-lover?”
Vi gave me a sideways glance. “You can say it. I know you don’t mean any harm. Scout asked him if he was a nigger-lover, but she’s just a confused kid. I really liked that he told her he was one.”
“That part shocked me.”
“Yeah, and the next time someone yells nigger-lover at my family I’m going to be like Atticus Finch and tell them that I’m trying to love everybody.” Violet grabbed my hand. “But you know what’s crazy?”
Her eyes narrowed, bridged together by two hard lines. Her mouth shifted into a frown so fast that I braced myself. “What?”
“When people say that, I never know if I’m the nigger or the nigger-lover.”
― Patricia Dunn-Fierstein, Finding Grace

“Food is prevalent in the novel (To Kill A Mockingbird), with many mentions of tempting Southern treats, including ambrosia, turnip greens, Lane cake, crackling bread, peach pickles, dewberry tarts, fried pork chops and Nehi cola.”
― Dinah Fried, Fictitious Dishes

“Antes de poder viviré con otras personas tengo que vivir conmigo mismo. La única cosa que no se rige por la regla de la mayoría es la conciencia de uno.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Yo creo que sólo hay una clase de personas. Personas”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“The novel predicted the triumphs of the post-1968 PMC: the moral rectitude of the virtuous lawyer and his high-spirited daughter renders the solution to racism attractive to the establishment—work on individual capacities for empathy and walking in another human being’s shoes; read books; have righteous feelings. To Kill a Mockingbird was an extraordinarily effective piece of Cold War anti-Communist propaganda: based on a liberal fantasy that antiracism is about good white people defending helpless black people against bad (poor) white people, it created an image of American liberalism that was a powerful tool for winning hearts and minds at home and around the world.”
― Catherine Liu, Virtue Hoarders: The Case against the Professional Managerial Class

“Real courage is 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.”
― Atticus Finch