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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

Characters make their own plot. The dimensions of the characters determine the action of the novel.
HARPER LEE

Action Character Determination Dimension Novel Story
I’m still old-fashioned. I love dusty old books and libraries.
HARPER LEE

Book Fashion Library Love Myself Old
You can choose your friends but you sho’ can’t choose your family, an’ they’re still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge ’em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don’t.
HARPER LEE

Acknowledgement Choice Family Friendship Right Yourself
Things are never as bad as they seem.
HARPER LEE

Appearance Bad One Liner
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.
HARPER LEE

Believe Court Health Ideal Integrity Live Work
But sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down.
HARPER LEE

Best Conduct Ourselves Time
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

Education Learning Writing Yourself
Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.
HARPER LEE

Beginning Cleaning End Faith Prejudice Reason
But before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself.
HARPER LEE

Deep Live Myself People Spiritual
A man can condemn his enemies, but it’s wiser to know them.
HARPER LEE

Enemy Man Wisdom
I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.
HARPER LEE

Advice Aspiration Career Development Hide Myself Wisdom Writing
Rest assured, as long as I am alive any book purporting to be with my cooperation is a falsehood.
HARPER LEE

Alive Book Cooperation Fake Myself Rest
As 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

Better Earth Equality Growth Harm Important Myself Poor Rich Thinking Truth Yourself
Summer 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 LEE

Best Color Eat Goodness Season Sleep Summer
Sometimes it’s better to bend the law a little in special cases.
HARPER LEE

Better Case Exception Law Special
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

Best God Goodness Hope Limitation Myself Objective Talent Worst

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Harper Lee Quotes