Harper Lee Quotes

106 Sourced Quotes

Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it. Somehow, it was hotter then. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon after their three o'clock naps. And by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting from sweating and sweet talcum. The day was twenty-four hours long, but it seemed longer. There's no hurry, for there's nowhere to go and nothing to buy...and no money to buy it with.

Harper Lee
Again, as I had often met it in my own church, I was confronted with the Impurity of Women doctrine that seemed to preoccupy all clergymen.

Harper Lee
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.

Harper Lee
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
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 pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.

Harper Lee
Long ago, in a burst of friendliness, Aunty and Uncle Jimmy produced a son named Henry…

Harper Lee
I didn't know how you were going to do it, but from now on I'll never worry about what'll become of you, son, you'll always have an idea.

Harper Lee
People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.

Harper Lee
Whatever she says to you, it's your job not to let her make you mad.

Harper Lee
As I made my way home, I thought Jem and I would get grown but there wasn't much else for us to learn, except possibly algebra.

Harper Lee
The sixth grade seemed to please him from the beginning: he went through a brief Egyptian Period that baffled me — he tried to walk flat a great deal, sticking one arm in front of him and one in back of him, putting one foot behind the other. He declared Egyptians walked that way; I said if they did I didn't see how they got anything done, but Jem said they accomplished more than the Americans ever did, they invented toilet paper and perpetual embalming, and asked where would we be today if they hadn't? Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts.

Harper Lee
Don't you study about other folks's business till you take care of your own.

Harper Lee
The things that happen to people we never really know. What happens in houses behind closed doors, what secrets -

Harper Lee
This time we aren't fighting the Yankees, we're fighting our friends. But remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they're still our friends and this is still our home.

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

Harper Lee