50+ Harper Lee Quotes | Minimalist Quotes

There are some men in this world who are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father’s one of them.
HARPER LEE

Born Father Insult Job Man World Yourself
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.
HARPER LEE

Break Desire Herself Mistake Persistence Strong Talk
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

Family Myself Possible Protection Son Ugly World
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
It’s better to be silent than to be a fool.
HARPER LEE

Better Fools Silence
A man can condemn his enemies, but it’s wiser to know them.
HARPER LEE

Enemy Man Wisdom
People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.
HARPER LEE

Mindset People Pride Right Talent
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.
HARPER LEE

Bird Destroy Enjoyment Garden Heart Music Sin Sing
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.
HARPER LEE

Bad Hurt Insult Name Person Poor Thinking Yourself
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.
HARPER LEE

Carry Color Deal Man People Place Right Room Way
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 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
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

Beautiful Language Love Struggle Substitute
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.
HARPER LEE

Courage Hands Ideas Reality Weapon
I do my best to love everybody.
HARPER LEE

Best Compassionate Kindness Love Myself One Liner
Characters make their own plot. The dimensions of the characters determine the action of the novel.
HARPER LEE

Action Character Determination Dimension Novel Story
The 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 LEE

Book Equality Reading Religious Thinking
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.
HARPER LEE

Deep Different Discipline Learning People Process Quite Writer Writing
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
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
The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.
HARPER LEE

Conscience Listening People Person Rule
Sometimes it’s better to bend the law a little in special cases.
HARPER LEE

Better Case Exception Law Special
Things are always better in the morning.
HARPER LEE

Better Morning One Liner
With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable.
HARPER LEE

Himself Life Love Relationship Routine
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.
HARPER LEE

Black Human Immoral Lying Man Race Trust White Woman
As a reader I loathe introductions…Introductions inhibit pleasure, they kill the joy of anticipation, they frustrate curiosity.
HARPER LEE

Curiosity Frustration Happiness Introduction Joy Kill Reading

Harper Lee Quotes

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