Top 100 Harper Lee Quotes

#1. Things are always better in the morning.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #40209
#2. Her victim - of necessity she must put him away from her - he must be removed from her presence, from this world. She must destroy the evidence of her offense. What was

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #47454
#3. Said once, that the only real duties of government were to prevent crime and preserve contracts, to which I will add one thing since I find myself reluctantly in the twentieth century: and to provide for the common defense.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #51229
#4. She was almost in love with him. No, that's impossible, she thought: either you are or you aren't. Love's the only thing in this world that is unequivocal. There are different kinds of love, certainly, but it's a you-do or you-don't proposition with them all.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #66763
#5. A world she despised, could not comprehend, nor defend herself against. a world that did not want her

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #100873
#6. Shoulder up, I reeled around to face Boo Radley and his bloody fangs; instead, I saw Dill ringing the bell with all his might in Atticus's face.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #107140
#7. I don't care one speck. It ain't right, somehow it ain't right to do 'em that way. Hasn't anybody got any business talkin' like that- it just makes me sick.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #156813
#8. There was no mistaking it, Albert had stuck out his tongue at her. She was pregnant. Jean

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #174862
#9. 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.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #228683
#10. That's the one thing about here, the South, you've missed. You'd be amazed if you knew how many people are on your side, if side's the right word. You're no special case. The woods are full of people like you, but we need some more of you. She

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #237177
#11. There was no doubt about it: Alexandra Finch Hancock was imposing from any angle; her behind was no less uncompromising than her front.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #272223
#12. Herbert Jemson was Methodist of the whole cloth: he was notoriously short on theology and a mile long on good works.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #273414
#13. She had been half willing to sponge out what she had seen and heard, creep back to New York, and make him a memory. A memory of the three of them, Atticus, Jem, and her, when things were uncomplicated and people did not lie.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #275201
#14. All we had was Simon Finch, a fur-trapping apothecary from Cornwall whose piety was exceeded only by his stinginess.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #293392
#15. The warm bittersweet smell of clean Negro welcomed us as we entered the churchyard-Hearts of Love hairdressing mingled with asafoetida, snuff, Hoyt's Cologne, Brown's Mule, peppermint, and lilac talcum.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #298801
#16. I do much of my creative thinking while golfing. If people know you're working at home they think nothing of walking in for a cup of coffee, but wouldn't dream of interrupting on the golf course.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #302867
#17. 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.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #315341
#18. Come to me. When you can't stand it any longer, come to me.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #319569
#19. But at supper that evening after I asked him to pass the damn ham, please, Uncle Jack pointed at me. 'See me afterwards young lady,' he said.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #327707
#20. How could they do it, how could they?'
'I don't know, but they did it.They've done it before and they did it tonight and they'll do it again and when they do - seems that only children weep

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #396315
#21. When we reached the auditorium, the whole town was there except Atticus and the ladies worn out from decorating, and the usual outcasts and shut-ins.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #408593
#22. Everybody's gotta learn, nobody's born knowing.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #429604
#23. Older Scout: [narrating] Neighbors bring food with death, and flowers with sickness, and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a knife, and our lives.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #435860
#24. Atticus said naming people after Confederate generals made slow steady drinkers.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #455218
#25. I thought women liked to be thought strange and mysterious." "No, they just like to look strange and mysterious. When you get past all the boa feathers, every woman born in this world wants a strong man who knows her like a book, who's not only her lover but he who keepeth Israel.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #468443
#26. Southern lawyers don't read novels much.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #540785
#27. Serving on a jury forces a man to make up his mind and declare himself about something. Men don't like to do that. Sometimes it's unpleasant.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #551172
#28. Every nerve in her body shrieked, then died. She was numb.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #576671
#29. 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.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #581405
#30. 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

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #588277
#31. There was nothing whatever wrong with Mr. Stone, except that he possessed all the necessary qualifications for a certified public accountant: he did not like people, he was quick with numbers, he had no sense of humor, and he was butt-headed.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #647223
#32. Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin'.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #653556
#33. Atticus - " said Jem bleakly. He turned in the doorway. "What, son?" "How could they do it, how could they?" "I don't know, but they did it. They've done it before and they did it tonight and they'll do it again and when they do it - seems that only children weep. Good night." But

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #653746
#34. It was a place where, if troubles did not vanish, they were made bearable.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #659678
#35. As I sit here and breathe, I never thought the good God would let me live to see someone walk into the middle of a revolution, pull a lugubrious face, and say, 'What's the matter?

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #673221
#36. My objectives are very limited. I want to do the best I can with the talent God gave me. I hope to goodness that every novel I do gets better and better, not worse and worse.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #677766
#37. The only way in which all men in America are equal, is in the courtroom - Atticus

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #695686
#38. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her
afterwards. - Atticus Finch

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #708631
#39. Things are never as bad as they seem.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #730200
#40. 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.- Atticus Finch
RIP Harper Lee

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #759722
#41. I proved him a liar but John made him look like a fool. All the time Ewell was on the stand I couldn't dare look at John and keep a straight face. John looked at him as if he were a three-legged chicken or a square egg. Don't tell me judges don't try to prejudice juries.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #772134
#42. She would have pondered over the meaninglessness of silent, austere beauty renewing itself with every sunrise and going ungazed at by half the world.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #791363
#43. You know, many writers really don't like to write. I think this the chief complaint of so many. They hate to write; they do it under the compulsion that makes any artist the victim he is, but they loathe the process of sitting down trying to turn thoughts into reasonable sentences.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #794075
#44. Mr. Finch, if you was a nigger like me, you'd be scared, too.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #795051
#45. Well, it'd be sort of like shootin' a mockingbird wouldn't it?

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #797896
#46. Jean Louise Finch always made this journey by air,

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #837523
#47. -what are you doing in those overalls? You should be in a dress and camisole, young lady!-

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #838489
#48. Remember this also: it's always easy to look back and see what we were, yesterday, ten years ago. It is hard to see what we are. If you can master that trick, you'll get along.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #866099
#49. Colored folks don't show their ages so fast," she said. "Maybe

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #906019
#50. Nothing is more deadly than a deserted, waiting street.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #922684
#51. They said if he'd had two good arms he'd have made it, he was moving that fast. Seventeen bullet holes in him. They didn't have to shoot him that much.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #933766
#52. Long ago, in a burst of friendliness, Aunty and Uncle Jimmy produced a son named Henry ...

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #934224
#53. cheatin' a colored man is ten times worse than cheatin' a white man

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #949230
#54. They're real strong magic, they make you have good luck. Not like fried chicken when you're not lookin' for it, but things like long life n' good health, n' passin' six weeks tests ... these are real valuable to somebody.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #952135
#55. sometimes. . . . She slowed

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #966446
#56. If she was on the porch when we passed, we would be raked by her wrathful gaze, subjected to ruthless interrogation regarding our behaviour, and given a melancholy prediction on what we would amount to when we grew up, which was always nothing.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #973301
#57. I told Jem if he set fire to the Radley house I was going to tell Atticus on him.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #993877
#58. I don't want to hear any words like that while I'm here. Scout, you'll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to grow up to be a lady, don't you?'
I said not particularly.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1045598
#59. Besides making change in the collection plate every Sunday, Mr. Avery sat on the porch every night until nine o'clock and sneezed.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1069690
#60. If Dill were here he would leap over the fence to her, bring her head down to his, kiss her, and hold her hand, and together they would take their stand when there was trouble in the house. But Dill had long since gone from her.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1083087
#61. What do you think of Chicago?
Well, the telephone operator woke me up today and said, 'Good morning, Miss Lee. It's eight o'clock, and three below zero.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1094716
#62. I do my best to love everyday

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1132928
#63. You little folks won't tell on me now, will you? It'd ruin my reputation if you did." "You mean all you drink in that sack's Coca-Cola? Just plain Coca-Cola?" "Yes

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1137713
#64. As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place he'll look for his lessons.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1172570
#65. Cry about the simple hell people give other people- without even thinking. Cry about the hell white people give colored folks, without even stopping to think that they're people too.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1184370
#66. Dill?"
Mm?"
Why do you reckon Boo Radleys never run off?"
Dill sighed a long sigh and turned away from me.
Maybe he doesn't have anywhere to run off to

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1195345
#67. As Kipling said, that's another story...

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1254022
#68. There's nothing like a blood-curdling hymn to make you feel at home,

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1254559
#69. Against his raising? I'll tell you!" She put her hand to her mouth. When she drew it away, it trailed a long silver thread of saliva. "Your father's no better than the niggers and trash he works for!

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1256098
#70. Predict the actions of every conductor from New Orleans to Cincinnati, would

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1337142
#71. Folks don't like to have somebody around knowing more than they do.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1376387
#72. Lightning rods guarding some graves denoted dead who rested uneasily; stumps of burned-out candles stood at the heads of infant graves. It was a happy cemetery.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1392960
#73. Don't argue with a man, especially when you know you can beat him.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1410160
#74. Jem's not quite thirteen ... no, he's already thirteen - I can't remember. Anyway, it'll come before county court.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1414712
#75. If we followed our feelings all the time, we'd be like cats chasin' their tails.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1415072
#76. When you get past all the boa feathers, every woman born in this world wants a strong man who knows her like a book, who's not only her lover but he who keepeth Israel. Stupid, isn't it?

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1431008
#77. Our gods are remote from us, Jean Louise. They must never descend to human level." "Is

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1450342
#78. Writing is something you'll never learn in any university or at any school. It's something that is within you, and if it isn't there, nothing can put it there.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1467679
#79. Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. It's knowing 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.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1505504
#80. Well, Dill, after all he's just a Negro." "I don't care one speck. It ain't right, somehow it ain't right to do 'em that way. Hasn't anybody got any business talkin' like that - it just makes me sick." "That's

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1539603
#81. Melbourne said I'll put it in my own words: the time your friends need you is when they're wrong, Jean Louise. They don't need you when they're right - " "What

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1564661
#82. If you did not want much, there was plenty.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1578340
#83. I didn't go overseas, but I saw a lot of this country. I didn't have the itch to get back, so after the war I stayed away for ten years, but the longer I stayed away the more I missed Maycomb. I got to the point where I felt like I had to come back or die. You never get it out of your bones.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1629472
#84. To be a serious writer requires discipline that is iron fisted. It's sitting down and doing it whether you think you have it in you or not. Everyday. Alone. Without interruption. Contrary to what most people think, there is no glamour to writing. In fact, it's heartbreak most of the time.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1635551
#85. You damn morphodite, I'll kill you!

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1655421
#86. Atticus, he was real nice."
"Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1673296
#87. His food doesn't stick going down, does it?

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1684634
#88. But I don't get the connection.
Dr. Finch put his hands on the table. 'That's because you haven't looked,' he said. 'You've never opened your eyes.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1696635
#89. I learned more about the poor Mrunas' social life from listening to Mrs. Merriweather: they had so little sense of family that the whole tribe was one big family.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1697862
#90. The only remedy for this is not to let it beat you.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1703080
#91. Simply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally. This one's mine, I guess.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1720106
#92. There's no substitute for the love of language, for the beauty of an English sentence. There's no substitute for struggling, if a struggle is needed, to make an English sentence as beautiful as it should be.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1772075
#93. There's something in our world that makes men lose their heads - they couldn't be fair if they tried.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1801218
#94. Nothin's real scary except in books.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1816469
#95. Ladies pick funny things to be proud of.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1824520
#96. 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?

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1847367
#97. Dill was a villain's villain: he could get into any character part assigned him, and appear tall if height was part of the devilry required.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1850910
#98. I just thought you'd like to know I can read. You got anything needs readin' I can do it.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1851466
#99. The cold water embraced hime like no woman ever could

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1867932
#100. With her head on his shoulder, Jean Louise was content. It might work after all, she thought. But I am not domestic. I don't even know how to run a cook. What do ladies say to each other when they go visiting? I'd have to wear a hat. I'd drop the babies and kill 'em.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee Quotes #1876769

Famous Authors

Popular Topics

Scroll to Top