Harper Lee Quotes

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

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

Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin'.

We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe- some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they're born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others- some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of men.
But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal- there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court.

Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.

They've done it before and they'll do it again and when they do it — seems that only the children weep. Good night.

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.

Ladies in bunches always filled me with vague apprehension and a firm desire to be elsewhere.

As a reader I loathe introductions...Introductions inhibit pleasure, they kill the joy of anticipation, they frustrate curiosity.

Things are never as bad as they seem.

It's not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike — in the second place, folks don't like to have someone around knowin' more than they do. It aggravates them. Your not gonna change any of them by talkin' right, they've got to want to learn themselves, and when they don't want to learn there's nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language.

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.

"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."

That boy is your company. And if he wants to eat up that tablecloth, you let him, you hear?

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