Harper Lee Quotes

It's not time to worry yet

Summer, and he watched his children's heart break.

Herbert Jemson was Methodist of the whole cloth: he was notoriously short on theology and a mile long on good works.

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

A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. But it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself. We

Miss Maudie's hand closed tightly on mine, and I said nothing. Its warmth was enough.

But she knew that her father's presence at the table with a man who spewed filth from his mouth - did that make it less filthy? No. it condoned.

I've been writing as long as I've been able to form words. I never wrote with an idea of publishing anything until I began working on '[To Kill a] Mockingbird'. I think that what went before may have been a rather subconscious form of learning how to write, of training myself.

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

That doesn't mean you hafta talk that way when you know better, said Jem. Calpurnia

I'll never forgive you for what you did to me. You cheated me, you've driven me out of my home and now I'm in a no-man's-land but good - there's no place for me any more in Maycomb, and I'll never be entirely at home anywhere else. Her

I am a stranger at a cocktail party.

You saw something come between them and reason. You saw the same thing that night in front of the jail. When that crew went away, they didn't go as reasonable men, they went because we were there. There's something in our world that makes men lose their heads - they couldn't be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins.

A man can appear to be a part of something not-so-good on its face, but don't take it upon yourself to judge him unless you know his motives as well.

It was a happy cemetery. The

There you go, wading in your clodhoppers through our private territory.

Atticus said professional people were poor because the farmers were poor. As Maycomb County was farm country, nickels and dimes were hard to come by for doctors and dentists and lawyers.

I remember when my daddy gave me that gun. He told me that I should never point it at anything in the house; and that he'd rather I'd shoot at tin cans in the backyard. But he said that sooner or later he supposed the temptation to go after birds would be too much, and that I could shoot all the blue jays I wanted - if I could hit 'em; but to remember it was a sin to kill a mockingbird.

I'm little but I'm old.

Dr. Finch looked up. You're making a bad mistake if you think your daddy's dedicated to keeping the Negroes in their places.

Way back about nineteen-twenty there was a Klan ... The Ku Klux's gone ... It'll never come back.

The Radleys, welcome anywhere in town, kept to themselves, a predilection unforgivable in Maycomb. They

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?

Oh, not the kind of courage that makes a soldier go across no-man's land. That's the kind that he summons up because he has to. This kind is- well, it is part of one's will to live, part of one's instinct for self-preservation. Sometimes, we have to kill a little so we can live, when we don't-when women don't, they cry themselves to sleep and have their mothers wash out their hose every day.

The man who could not be discourteous to a ground-squirrel had sat in the courthouse abetting the cause of grubby-minded little men.

Avery said it was written on the Rosetta Stone that when children disobeyed their parents, smoked cigarettes and made war on each other, the seasons would change: Jem and I were burdened with the guilt of contributing to the aberrations of nature, thereby causing unhappiness to our neighbours and discomfort to ourselves.

Sherlock Holmes and Jem Finch would agree.

You rarely win, but sometimes you do.

The cold water embraced hime like no woman ever could

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.

Mr. Clinton," he had said, when Henry ventured to inquire about a particularly ambiguous examination, "you may write until doomsday for all I care, but if your answers do not coincide with my answers they are wrong. Wrong, sir.

Aunty," she said, cordially, "why don't you go pee in your hat?

Finch kept his house militarily spotless, but books tended to pile up wherever he sat down, and because it was his habit to sit down anywhere he got ready, there were small stacks of books in odd places about the house that were a constant curse to his cleaning woman. He would not let her touch them, and he insisted on apple-pie neatness, so the poor creature was obliged to vacuum, dust, and polish around them. One unfortunate maid lost her head and lost his place in Tuckwell's Pre-Tractarian Oxford, and Dr. Finch shook a broom at her.

Apparently Mayella's recital had given her confidence, but it was not her father's brash kind: there was something stealthy about hers, like a steady-eyed cat with a twitchy tail.

I try to give'em a reason, you see. It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason.

Our gods are remote from us, Jean Louise. They must never descend to human level." "Is

There was also a phrase for him: pick at random any citizen from Maycomb County and its environs, ask him what he thought of Atticus Finch, and the answer would most likely be, "I never had a better friend." Atticus

Let's go home, Scout. It's been a long day. Open the door for me.

Her world was at its best when her time came to leave it.

Cry about what, Mr. Raymond?" Dill's maleness was beginning to assert itself. "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." "Atticus

Mutual defiance made them alike.

[T]he time your friends need you is when they're wrong, Jean Louise. They don't need you when they're right

I suppose she chose me because she knew my name; as I read the alphabet a faint line appeared between her eyebrows, and after making me read most of My First Reader and the stock-market quotations from The Mobile Register aloud, she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste. Miss Caroline told me to tell my father not to teach me any more, it would interfere with my reading.

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.

What's a Hot Steam?" asked Dill. "Haven't you ever walked along a lonesome road at night and passed by a hot place?" Jem asked Dill. "A Hot Steam's somebody who can't get to heaven, just wallows around on lonesome roads an' if you walk through him, when you die you'll be one too, an' you'll go around at night suckin' people's breath - " "How can you keep from passing through one?" "You can't," said Jem. "Sometimes they stretch all the way across the road, but if you hafta go through one you say, 'Angel-bright, life-in-death; get off the road, don't suck my breath.' That keeps 'em from wrapping around you -

I just thought you'd like to know I can read. You got anything needs readin' I can do it.

We are making a step. It's just a baby step but it's a step.

She bit her tongue on the obvious, and said, "How do I go about being an enchantress?"
Henry warmed to his subject. At thirty, he was an adviser. Maybe because he was a lawyer. "First," he said dispassionately, "hold your tongue. Don't argue with a man, especially when you know you can beat him. Smile a lot. Make him feel big. Tell him how wonderful he is, and wait on him."
She smiled brilliantly and said, "Hank, I agree with everything you've said. You are the most perspicacious individual I've met in years, you are six feet five, and may I light your cigarette? How's that?"
"Awful."
They were friends again. (Chapter 1)

When I pointed to him his palms slipped slightly, leaving greasy sweat streaks on the wall, and he hooked his thumbs in his belt. A strange spasm shook him, as if he heard fingernails scrape slate, but as I gazed at him in wonder the tension slowly drained from his face. His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor's image blurred with my sudden tears.
"Hey, Boo," I said.
"Mr. Arthur, honey," said Atticus, gently correcting me. "Jean Louise, this is Mr. Arthur Radley. I believe he already knows you.

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. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest JP court in the land, or this honourable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal

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.

Revival time was a time of war: war on sin, Coca-Cola, picture shows, hunting on Sunday; war on the increasing tendency of young women to paint themselves and smoke in public; war on drinking whiskey - in this connection at least fifty children per summer went to the altar and swore they would not drink, smoke, or curse until they were twenty-one; war on something so nebulous Jean Louise never could figure out what it was, except there was nothing to swear concerning it; and war among the town's ladies over who could set the best table for the evangelist.

He was out of his mind," said Atticus. "Don't like to contradict you, Mr. Finch - wasn't crazy - mean as hell. Low-down skunk with enough liquor in him to make him brave enough to kill children. He'd never have met you face to face.

He looked all Negro to me: he was rich chocolate with flaring nostrils and beautiful teeth. Sometimes he would skip happily , and the Negro woman tugged his hand to make him stop.

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

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It had never fully occurred to Jean Louise that she was a girl: her life had been one of reckless, pummeling activity; fighting, football, climbing, keeping up with Jem, and besting anyone her own age in any contest requiring physical prowess.

Well, in the first place, you stopped to gimme a chance to tell you my side of it- you just lit right into me. When Jem an' I fuss Atticus doesn't ever listen to just Jem's side of it, he hears mine too

Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up. I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this defendant to his family. In the name of God, do your duty." Atticus's

I never understood her preoccupation with heredity. Somewhere, I had received the impression that Fine Folks were people who did the best they could with the sense they had, but Aunt Alexandra was of the opinion, obliquely expressed, that the longer a family had been squatting on one patch of land the finer it was.

She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl.

Nothin's real scary except in books.

How do I go about being an enchantress?" Henry warmed to his subject. At thirty, he was an adviser. Maybe because he was a lawyer. "First," he said dispassionately, "hold your tongue. Don't argue with a man, especially when you know you can beat him. Smile a lot. Make him feel big. Tell him how wonderful he is, and wait on him." She smiled brilliantly and said, "Hank, I agree with everything you've said. You are the most perspicacious individual I've met in years, you are six feet five, and may I light your cigarette? How's that?" "Awful." They were friends again.

She followed him into a dark parlor to which clung the musky sweet smell of clean Negro, snuff, and Hearts of Love hairdressing. Several shadowy forms rose when she entered.

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?

It takes considerable getting used to. I hated it for two years. It intimidated me daily until one morning when someone pushed me on a bus and I pushed back. After I pushed back I realized I'd become a part of it.

You're no better. You're no damn better. You just try to kill their souls instead of their bodies.

The remainder of the afternoon went by in the gentle gloom that descends when relatives appear ...

My Lord, Aunt Stephanie, you almost gave me a heart attack!

cheatin' a colored man is ten times worse than cheatin' a white man

Jean Louise, when a man's looking down the double barrel of a shotgun, he picks up the first weapon he can find to defend himself, be it a stone or a stick of stovewood or a citizens' council." "That

Dill said striking a match under a turtle was hateful.
"Ain't hateful, just persuades him- 's not like you'd chunk him in the fire," Jem growled.
"How do you know a match don't hurt him?"
"Turtles can't feel , stupid," said Jem.
"Were you ever a turtle, huh?

... something's wrong with me, it's something about me. It has to be because all these people cannot have changed.

See there, Heck? Thank you from the bottom of my heart, but I don't want my boy starting out with something like this over his head. Best way to clear the air is to have it all out in the open. Let the county come and bring sandwiches. I don't want him growing up with a whisper about him, I don't want anybody saying, 'Jem Finch . . . his daddy paid a mint to get him out of that.' Sooner we get this over with the better." "Mr. Finch," Mr. Tate said stolidly, "Bob Ewell fell on his knife. He killed himself.

She was easy to look at and easy to be with most of the time, but she was in no sense of the word an easy person. She was afflicted with a restlessness of spirit he could not guess at, but he knew she was the one for him.

She stepped aside to let him pass. She followed him to the car and watched him get laboriously into the front seat. As she welcomed him silently to the human race, the stab of discovery made her tremble a little. Somebody walked over my grave, she thought, probably Jem on some idiotic errand.

Were you so scared that she'd hurt you, you ran, a big buck like you?"

"No suh, I's scared I'd be in court, just like I am now."

"Scared of arrest, scared you'd have to face up to what you did?"

"No suh, scared I'd hafta face up to what I didn't do.

It is doubtful that he ever sought for meanings; he merely reared his children as best he could, and in terms of the affection his children felt for him, his best was indeed good: he was never too tired to play Keep-Away; he was never too busy to invent marvelous stories; he was never too absorbed in his own problems to listen earnestly to a tale of woe; every night he read aloud to them until his voice cracked. Atticus

Had her conduct been more friendly toward me, I would have felt sorry for her. She was a pretty little thing.

The night-crawlers had retired, but ripe chinaberries drummed on the roof when the wind stirred, and the darkness was desolate with the barking of distant dogs.

The Gray Ghost, by Seckatary Hawkins.

Jem also told me that if I breathed a word to Atticus, if in any way I let Atticus know I knew, Jem would personally never speak to me again.

What was this blight that had come down over the people she loved? Did she see it in stark relief because she had been away from it? Had it percolated gradually through the years until now? Had it always been under her nose for her to see if she had only looked? No, not the last. What turned ordinary men into screaming dirt at the top of their voices, what made her kind of people harden and say "nigger" when the word had never crossed their lips before?

Cynical, hell. I'm a healthy old man with a constitutional mistrust of paternalism and government in large doses.

The Lord never sends you more than you can bear -

I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system - that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up. I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this defendant to his family. In the name of God, do your duty.

New York has all the answers. People go to the YMHA, the English-Speaking Union, Carnegie Hall, the New School for Social Research, and find all the answers. The city lives by slogans, isms, and fast sure answers. New York is saying to me right now: you, Jean Louise Finch, are not reacting according to our doctrines regarding your kind, therefore you do not exist.

Conservative resistance to change, that's all,

Door. She knocked and went in. Atticus was in bed reading. "Have a good time?" "I had a won-derful time," she said. "Atticus?" "Hm?

He is an incredible man, she thought. A chapter of his life comes to a close, Atticus tears down the old house and builds a new one in a new section of town. I couldn't do it. They built an ice cream parlor where the old one was. Wonder who runs it?

Jean Louise had a sinking feeling. The Hundred Years' War had progressed to approximately its twenty-sixth year with no indications of anything more than periods of uneasy truce.

To all parties present and participating in the life of the country, Aunt Alexandra was one of the last of her kind: she had river-boat, boarding-school manners; let any moral come along and she would uphold it; she was born in the objective case; she was an incurable gossip. When Aunt Alexandra went to school, self-doubt could not be found in any textbook, so she knew not its meaning. She was never bored, and given the slightest chance she would exercise her royal prerogative: she would arrange, advise, caution, and warn. She never let a chance escape her to point out the shortcomings of other tribal groups to the greater glory of our own, a habit that amused Jem rather than annoyed him: Aunty better watch how she talks - scratch most folks in Maycomb and they're kin to us.

Atticus sometimes said that one way to tell whether a witness was lying or telling the truth was to listen rather than watch.

I should like to take your head apart, put a fact in it, and watch it go its way through the runnels of your brain until it comes out of your mouth. We were both born here, we went to the same schools, we were taught the same things. I wonder what you saw and heard.

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.

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,

Right. But do you think I could face my children otherwise? You know what's going to happen as well as I do, Jack, and I hope and pray I can get Jem and Scout through it without bitterness, and most of all, without catching Maycomb's usual disease. Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand... I just hope that Jem and Scout come to me for their answers instead of listening to the town. I hope they trust me enough... Jean Louise?" My scalp jumped. I stuck my head around the corner. "Sir?" "Go to bed.

Around the house to get in, but he run out the front door just ahead of me. I sawed who he was, all right. I was too distracted about Mayella to run after'im. I run in the house and she was lyin' on the floor squallin' - " "Then what did you

Jean Louise had lost touch with nearly everyone she grew up with and did not wish particularly to rediscover the companions of her adolescence. Her schooldays were her most miserable days, she was unsentimental to the point of callousness about the women's college she had attended, nothing displeased her more than to be set in the middle of a group of people who played Remember Old So-and-So.

Miss Maudie settled her bridgework. "You know old Mr. Radley was a foot-washing Baptist - " "That's what you are, ain't it?" "My shell's not that hard, child. I'm just a Baptist." "Don't you all believe in foot-washing?" "We do. At home in the bathtub." "But we can't have communion with you all -

Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.