Characters make their own plot. The dimensions of the characters determine the action of the novel.
HARPER LEEA man can condemn his enemies, but it’s wiser to know them.
More Harper Lee Quotes
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Ladies pick funny things to be proud of.
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As a reader I loathe introductions…Introductions inhibit pleasure, they kill the joy of anticipation, they frustrate curiosity.
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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.
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The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box.
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Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.
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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.
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But sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down.
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Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself.
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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.
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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.
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Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.
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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.
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Writing is a process of self-discipline you must learn before you can call yourself a writer. There are people who write, but I think they’re quite different from people who must write.
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I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.
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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.
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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.
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People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.
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I do my best to love everybody.
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Sometimes the Bible in the hands of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hands of another.
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Everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowing.
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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.
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She knew full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking, she persisted in breaking it.
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I’m still old-fashioned. I love dusty old books and libraries.
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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.
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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.
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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