Harper Lee
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.Collection: Lying
I didn't expect the book to sell in the first place. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of reviewers but at the same time I sort of hoped that maybe someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected.Collection: Encouragement
Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.Collection: Flower
Summer, and he watches his children's heart break. Autumn again and Boo's children needed him. Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough.Collection: Summer
Ladies in bunches always filled me with vague apprehension and a firm desire to be elsewhere.Collection: Tkam
That boy is your company. And if he wants to eat up that tablecloth, you let him, you hear?Collection: Boys
I remember when my daddy gave me that gun. He told me that I should never point it at anything in the house; and that he'd rather I'd shoot at tin cans in the backyard. But he said that sooner or later he supposed the temptation to go after birds would be too much, and that I could shoot all the blue jays I wanted - if I could hit 'em; but to remember it was a sin to kill a mockingbird.Collection: Gun
You see they could never, never understand that I live like I do because that's the way I want to live.Collection: Want
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 quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles ‘em. No... you had the right answer this afternoon, but the wrong reasons. Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they’re not attracting attention with it. Hotheadedness isn’t.Collection: Children
Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they're not attracting attention with it.Collection: Children
Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I’d have the facts.Collection: Facts
I’m still old-fashioned. I love dusty old books and libraries.Collection: Book
You’ve really got to start hitting the books because it’s no joke out here.Collection: Book
My book had a universal theme. It’s not a “racial” novel. It portrays an aspect of civilization, not necessarily Southern civilization.Collection: Book