Top 500 Harper Lee Quotes (2025 Update)
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451. “Take him, Mr. Finch.” Mr. Tate handed the rifle to Atticus; Jem and I nearly fainted. “Don’t waste time, Heck,” said Atticus.”

— Harper Lee

452. “There was no doubt about it: Alexandra Finch Hancock was imposing from any angle; her behind was no less uncompromising than her front.”

— Harper Lee

453. “I wish Bob Ewell wouldn’t chew tobacco.” was all Atticus said about it. According to Miss Stephanie Crawford, however, Atticus was leaving the post office when Mr. Ewell approached him, cursed him, spat on him, and threatened to kill him... Miss Stephanie said Atticus didn’t bat an eye, just took out his handkerchief and wiped his face and stood there and let Mr. Ewell call him names wild horses could not bring her to repeat.”

— Harper Lee

454. “Yes. I’ll accept being called a snob when it comes to government. I’d like very much to be left alone to manage my own affairs in a live-and-let-live economy, I’d like for my state to be left alone to keep house without advice from the NAACP, which knows next to nothing about its business and cares less. That organization has stirred up more trouble in the past five years –.”

— Harper Lee

455. “When we reached the auditorium, the whole town was there except Atticus and the ladies worn out from decorating, and the usual outcasts and shut-ins.”

— Harper Lee

456. “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.”

— Harper Lee

457. “People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for, and they have a right to subject their children to it.”

— Harper Lee

458. “Since there was no evidence of criminal intent, he wouldn’t be above throwin’ a little dust in a juryman’s eyes.”

— Harper Lee

459. “But it’s okay to hate Hitler?” “It is not,” he said. “It’s not okay to hate anybody.”

— Harper Lee

460. “He was bleeding slowly to death in the midst of abundance, for his life’s blood was poverty.”

— Harper Lee

461. “When Alexandra went to finishing school, self-doubt could not be found in any textbook, so she knew not its meaning; she was never bored, and given the slightest chance she would exercise her royal prerogative: she would arrange, advise, caution, and warn. She.”

— Harper Lee

462. “Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.”

— Harper Lee

463. “Tim Johnson was advancing at a snail’s pace, but he was not playing or sniffing at foliage: he seemed dedicated to one course and motivated by an invisible force that was inching him toward us. We could see him shiver like a horse shedding flies; his jaw opened and shut; he was alist, but he was being pulled gradually toward us.”

— Harper Lee

464. “Dr. Buford’s profession was medicine and his obsession was anything that grew in the ground, so he stayed poor.”

— Harper Lee

465. “There was a time, long ago, when the only peaceful moments of her existence were those from the time she opened her eyes in the morning until she attained full consciousness, a matter of seconds until when finally roused she entered the day’s wakeful nightmare. She.”

— Harper Lee

466. “Nobody knew what form of intimidation Mr. Radley employed to keep Boo out of sight, but Jem figured that Mr. Radley kept him chained to the bed most of the time. Atticus said no, it wasn’t that sort of thing, that there were other ways of making people into ghosts.”

— Harper Lee

467. “I must soon enter this world, where on its surface fragrant ladies rocked slowly, fanned gently, and drank cool water.”

— Harper Lee

468. “I think maybe he put his gun down when he realized that God had given him an unfair advantage over most living things.”

— Harper Lee

469. “Jem, she’s old and ill. You can’t hold her responsible for what she says and does. Of course, I’d rather she’d have said it to me than to either of you, but we can’t always have our ’druthers.”

— Harper Lee

470. “Now we are both lonely, for entirely different reasons, but it feels the same, doesn’t it?”

— Harper Lee

471. “You see, don’t you,” said Aunt Alexandra, “what comes of things like this. Don’t say I haven’t told you.”

— Harper Lee

472. “It ain’t honest but it’s mighty helpful to folks... but you see they could never, never understand that I live like I do because that’s the way I want to live.”

— Harper Lee

473. “Ci sono degli uomini... che si preoccupano tanto dell’altro mondo da non imparare mai a vivere in questo.”

— Harper Lee

474. “Jem, see if you can stand in Bob Ewell’s shoes a minute. I destroyed his last shred of credibility at that trial, if he had any to begin with. The man had to have some kind of comeback, his kind always does.”

— Harper Lee

475. “Little Chuck Little, a hundred years old in his knowledge of cows and their habits, was halfway through an Uncle Natchell story when Miss Gates stopped him: ‘Charles, that is not a current event. That is an advertisement.”

— Harper Lee

476. “When my brother Jem was 13, he had his arm badly broken at the elbow.”

— Harper Lee

477. “Aunty said no, that’s where we got our small hands and feet.”

— Harper Lee

478. “One of the elderly members of the class answered her: “He’s one of the Ewells, ma’am,” and I wondered if this explanation would be as unsuccessful as my attempt.”

— Harper Lee

479. “It was customary for the town’s three churches – Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian – to unite and listen to one visiting minister, but occasionally when the churches could not agree on a preacher or his salary, each congregation held its own revival with an open invitation to all; sometimes, therefore, the populace was assured of three weeks’ spiritual reawakening. Revival time was a time of war:.”

— Harper Lee

480. “This would not do, I mused, as the class proceeded with its sums. One maniac and millions of German folks. Looked to me like they’d shut Hitler in a pen instead of letting him shut them up. There was something else wrong.”

— Harper Lee

481. “Seven o’clock and all’s well,” said Atticus. “You’ve been swearing at your aunt.” “I have not.” “She told me you had.” “I was crude, but I didn’t cuss her.”

— Harper Lee

482. “I mean it takes a certain kind of maturity to live in the South these days. You don’t have it yet, but you have a shadow of the beginnings of it. You haven’t the humbleness of mind – ” “I thought fear of the Lord was the beginning of wisdom.” “It’s the same thing. Humility.”

— Harper Lee

483. “What do you want me to do, go shout from the housetops that I am Henry Clinton and I’m here to tell you you’re all wet?”

— Harper Lee

484. “Jehovah. She catches me when I’m nearly out of my mind and lays out the avenues of my life. How can she be his sister and not have the slightest idea what goes on in his head, my head, anybody’s head? Oh Lord, why didn’t you give us tongues to explain to Aunt Alexandra?”

— Harper Lee

485. “There was no point to say you were sorry if you weren’t.”

— Harper Lee

486. “The only thing in America that is still unique in this tired world is that a man can go as far as his brains will take him or he can go to hell if he wants to, but it won’t be that way much longer.”

— Harper Lee

487. “There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. But it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself.”

— Harper Lee

488. “He likened Tom’s death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children.”

— Harper Lee

489. “Calpurnia was to blame for this. It kept me from driving her crazy on rainy days, I guess. She would set me a writing task by scrawling the alphabet firmly across the top of a tablet, then copying out a chapter of the Bible underneath. If I reproduced her penmanship satisfactorily, she rewarded me with an open-faced sandwich of bread and butter and sugar. In Calpurnia’s teaching, there was no sentimentality: I seldom pleased her and she seldom rewarded me. “Everybody.”

— Harper Lee

490. “I don’t know why you can’t. Hypocrites have just as much right to live in this world as anybody.”

— Harper Lee

491. “Jem’s face showed brief indecision on the ethics of withholding his own dime, but his innate courtesy won and he shifted his dime to his pocket. I did likewise with no qualms.”

— Harper Lee

492. “I learned more about the poor Mrunas’ social life from listening to Mrs. Merriweather: they had so little sense of family that the whole tribe was one big family.”

— Harper Lee

493. “Melbourne said once, that the only real duties of government were to prevent crime and preserve contracts, to which I will add one thing since I find myself reluctantly in the twentieth century: and to provide for the common defense.” “That’s a cloudy statement.” “Indeed it is. It leaves us with so much freedom.”

— Harper Lee

494. “Miss Maudie had once let me see it: among other things, the recipe called for one large cup of sugar.”

— Harper Lee

495. “There goes the meanest man ever God blew breath into,” murmured Calpurnia, and she spat meditatively into the yard. We.”

— Harper Lee

496. “After much passing around of money Cousin Joshua was moved across the tracks and placed in state accommodations for the irresponsible.”

— Harper Lee

497. “I think maybe he put his gun down when he realized that God had given him an unfair advantage over most living things. I guess he decided he wouldn’t shoot till he had to, and he had to today.” “Looks like he’d be proud of it,” I said. “People in their right minds never take pride in their talents,” said Miss Maudie.”

— Harper Lee

498. “I wondered if anybody had ever called her “ma’am,” or “Miss Mayella” in her life; probably not, as she took offense to routine courtesy. What on earth was her life like? I soon found out.”

— Harper Lee

499. “Jean Louise, will you please listen to me?” “God damn you, what?” “I just want to ask you one thing, one thing – what the hell do you expect me to do? Tell me, what the hell do you expect me to do?” “Do? I expect you to keep your gold-plated ass out of citizens’ councils! I don’t give a damn if Atticus is sitting across from you, if the King of England’s on your right and the Lord Jehovah’s on your left – I expect you to be a man, that’s all!” She.”

— Harper Lee

500. “I’m Charles Baker Harris, he said, and I can read.”

— Harper Lee