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.
HARPER LEEWhen 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.
HARPER LEEYou can’t really get to know a person until you get in their shoes and walk around in them.
HARPER LEELadies in bunches always filled me with vague apprehension and a firm desire to be elsewhere.
HARPER LEESummer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screeneed porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape.
HARPER LEEI think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.
HARPER LEEThings are always better in the morning.
HARPER LEEBut before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself.
HARPER LEEEverybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowing.
HARPER LEEI’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.
HARPER LEEThere are some men in this world who are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father’s one of them.
HARPER LEEI would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.
HARPER LEEWriting 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.
HARPER LEEThe book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for that.
HARPER LEEA man can condemn his enemies, but it’s wiser to know them.
HARPER LEEAs a reader I loathe introductions…Introductions inhibit pleasure, they kill the joy of anticipation, they frustrate curiosity.
HARPER LEEAs you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to others, and don’t think you are the most important being on earth. Rich or poor, you then can look anyone in the eye and say, ‘I’m probably no better than you, but I’m certainly your equal.
HARPER LEE