Top 215 Quotes & Sayings by Harper Lee - Page 4

I didn't know how you were going to do it, but from now on I'll never worry about what'll become of you, son, you'll always have an idea.

You see they could never, never understand that I live like I do because that's the way I want to live.

Don’t talk like that, Dill,” said Aunt Alexandra. “It’s not becoming to a child. It’s – cynical.” “I ain’t cynical, Miss Alexandra. Tellin’ the truth’s not cynical, is it?” “The way you tell it, it is.

See there?" Jem was scowling triumphantly. "Nothin' to it. I swear, Scout, sometimes you act so much like a girl its mortifyin

She's an old lady and she's ill. You just hold your head high and be a gentleman. Whatever she says to you, it's your job not to let her make you mad.

They're real strong magic, they make you have good luck. Not like fried chicken when you're not lookin' for it, but things like long life n' good health, n' passin' six weeks tests...these are real valuable to somebody.

I say guilt, gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society.

If this thing's hushed up it'll be a simple denial to Jem of the way I've tried to raise him. Sometimes I think I'm a total failure as a parent, but I'm all they've got. Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I've tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.. if I connived at something like this, frankly I couldn't meet his eye, and the day I can't do that I'll know I've lost him. I don't want to lose him and Scout, because they're all I've got.

About your writing with you left hand, are you ambidextrous, Mr. Ewell?" "I most positively am not, I can use one hand good as the other. One hand good as the other.

I shall never marry, Atticus." "Why?" "I might have children.

Jen and I were accustomed to our father's last-will-and-testament diction, and were at times free to interrupt Atticus for a translation when it was beyond our understanding.

Turtles don't feel, stupid," said Jem. "Were you ever a turtle, huh?

I think I'll be a clown when I get grown,' said Dill. Jem and I stopped in our tracks. Yes sir, a clown,' he said. 'There ain't one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.' You got it backwards, Dill,' said Jem. 'Clowns are sad, it's folks that laugh at them.' Well I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.

Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.

Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.

Nothing is more deadly than a deserted, waiting street.

Folks were doin' a lot of runnin' that night

I'm little but I'm old.

I wonder how much of the day I spend just callin' after you.

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

hold your head high and keep those fists down - Atticus Finch

I came to the conclusion that people were just peculiar, I withdrew from them, and never thought about them until I was forced to.

For the life of me, I did not understand how he[Atticus] could sit there in cold blood and read a newspaper when his only son stood an excellent chance of being murdered with a Confederate Army relic.

I'm Charles Baker Harris...I can read

Now that I was compelled to think about it, reading was something that just came to me, as learning to fasten the seat of my union suit without looking around, or achieving two bows from a snarl of shoelaces.

I think I'll be a clown when I get grown.... There ain't one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.

Cecil Jacobs is a big wet hen!

There are just some kind of men…who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one.

Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.

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.

So it took an eight-year-old child to bring 'em to their senses.... That proves something - that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human. Hmp, maybe we need a police force of children.

We’re so rarely called on to be Christians, but when we are, we’ve got men like Atticus to go for us.

The things that happen to people we never really know. What happens in houses behind closed doors, what secrets -

Weeping for Anna Karenina and being terrified by Hannibal Lecter, entering the heart of darkness with Mistah Kurtz, having Holden Caulfield ring you up - some things should happen on soft pages, not cold metal.