Harper Lee Quotes: 27

• You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.

  To Kill a Mockingbird

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

  To Kill a Mockingbird

• 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

  To Kill a Mockingbird

• I never expected any sort of success with 'Mockingbird'... I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement.

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

  To Kill a Mockingbird

• The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.

  To Kill a Mockingbird

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

  To Kill a Mockingbird

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

  To Kill a Mockingbird

• They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but 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.

  To Kill a Mockingbird

• Atticus, he was real nice." "Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.

  To Kill a Mockingbird

• 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.

  To Kill a Mockingbird

• 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.

  To Kill a Mockingbird

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

  To Kill a Mockingbird

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

  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.

  To Kill a Mockingbird

• 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.

  To Kill a Mockingbird

• 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.

  To Kill a Mockingbird

• 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.

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

  Go Set a Watchman

• 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.

  To Kill a Mockingbird

• 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.

• 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.

  To Kill a Mockingbird

• 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.

  To Kill a Mockingbird

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

• You rarely win, but sometimes you do.

• In Maycomb, if one went for a walk with no definite purpose in mind, it was correct to believe one's mind incapable of definite purpose.

  To Kill a Mockingbird

• You deny them hope... You are telling them that Jesus loves them, but not much.