Top 500 Harper Lee Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “Most people are nice when you finally see them.”

— Harper Lee

102. “But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal- there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest JP court in the land, or this honourable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal.”

— Harper Lee

103. “She glanced with satisfaction at the neat swath behind her. The grass lay crisply cut and smelled like a creek bank. The course of English Literature would have been decidedly different had Mr. Wordsworth owned a power mower, she thought.”

— Harper Lee

104. “There are just some kind of men who- who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.”

— Harper Lee

105. “Remember this also: it’s always easy to look back and see what we were, yesterday, ten years ago. It is hard to see what we are. If you can master that trick, you’ll get along.”

— Harper Lee

106. “Lawyers, I suppose, were children once. – Charles Lamb.”

— Harper Lee

107. “Her favorite game was golf because its essential principles consisted of a stick, a small ball, and a state of mind.”

— Harper Lee

108. “He went to the table and picked up a football magazine, opened it, thumbed through it, and was thumbing through it again when he said: “Scout, if there’s ever anything that happens to you or something – you know – something you might not want to tell Atticus about – ” “Huh?” “You know, if you get in trouble at school or anything – you just let me know. I’ll take care of you.” Jem sauntered from the livingroom, leaving Jean Louise wide-eyed and wondering if she were fully awake.”

— Harper Lee

109. “She went to him. “Atticus,” she said. “I’m – ” “You may be sorry, but I’m proud of you.” She looked up and saw her father beaming at her. “What?” “I said I’m proud of you.” “I don’t understand you. I don’t understand men at all and I never will.” “Well, I certainly hoped a daughter of mine’d hold her ground for what she thinks is right – stand up to me first of all.”

— Harper Lee

110. “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.”

— Harper Lee

111. “I was taught never to take advantage of anybody who was less fortunate than myself, whether he be less fortunate in brains, wealth, or social position; it meant anybody...”

— Harper Lee

112. “When a man spends his relief checks on green whiskey his children have a way of crying from hunger pains.”

— Harper Lee

113. “As I made my way home, I thought Jem and I would get grown but there wasn’t much else for us to learn, except possibly algebra.”

— Harper Lee

114. “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

115. “No, I mean I can smell somebody an’ tell if they’re gonna die. An old lady taught me how. Jean – Louise – Finch, you are going to die in three days.”

— Harper Lee

116. “Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in.”

— Harper Lee

117. “I thought Mr. Cunningham was a friend of ours. You told me a long time ago he was.” “He still is.” “But last night he wanted to hurt you.” Atticus placed his fork beside his knife and pushed his plate aside. “Mr. Cunningham’s basically a good man,” he said, “he just has his blind spots along with the rest of us.” Jem.”

— Harper Lee

118. “The only remedy for this is not to let it beat you.”

— Harper Lee

119. “You like words like damn and hell now, don’t you?” I said I reckoned so. “Well I don’t,” said Uncle Jack, “not unless there’s extreme provocation connected with ’em. I’ll be here a week, and I don’t want to hear any words like that while I’m here. Scout, you’ll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to grow up to be a lady, don’t you?” I said not particularly.”

— Harper Lee

120. “You don’t have to learn much out of books, it’s like if you want to learn about cows, you go milk one.”

— Harper Lee

121. “We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe. Some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they’re born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cupcakes than others; some are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men.”

— Harper Lee

122. “I don’t want to hear any words like that while I’m here. Scout, you’ll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to grow up to be a lady, don’t you?? I said not particularly.”

— Harper Lee

123. “You are too young to understand it,” she said, “but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of – oh, of your father.”

— Harper Lee

124. “I have said what I wanted to say and I will not say it again.”

— Harper Lee

125. “His first two clients were the last two persons hanged in the Maycomb County jail. Atticus had urged them to accept the state’s generosity in allowing them to plead Guilty to second-degree murder and escape with their lives, but they were Haverfords, in Maycomb County a name synonymous with jackass.”

— Harper Lee

126. “Never, never, never on cross-examination ask a witness a question you don’t already know the answer to, was a tenet I absorbed with my baby food. Do it, and you’ll often get an answer you don’t want.”

— Harper Lee

127. “I just don’t like my world disturbed without some warning.”

— Harper Lee

128. “Nothing is more deadly than a deserted, waiting street.”

— Harper Lee

129. “There’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads – they couldn’t be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins. They’re ugly, but those are the facts of life.”

— Harper Lee

130. “Miss Maudie settled her bridgework. “You know old Mr. Radley was a foot-washing Baptist – ” “That’s what you are, ain’t it?” “My shell’s not that hard, child. I’m just a Baptist.” “Don’t you all believe in foot-washing?” “We do. At home in the bathtub.” “But we can’t have communion with you all –.”

— Harper Lee

131. “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.”

— Harper Lee

132. “Serving on a jury forces a man to make up his mind and declare himself about something. Men don’t like to do that. Sometimes it’s unpleasant.”

— Harper Lee

133. “Cry about what, Mr. Raymond?” Dill’s maleness was beginning to assert itself. “Cry about the simple hell people give other people – without even thinking. Cry about the hell white people give colored folks, without even stopping to think that they’re people, too.” “Atticus.”

— Harper Lee

134. “A mob’s always made up of people, no matter what. Mr. Cunningham was part of a mob last night, but he was still a man. Every mob in every little Southern town is always made up of people you know – doesn’t say much for them, does it?”

— Harper Lee

135. “There is one way in this country in which all men are created equal – there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is the court.”

— Harper Lee

136. “Talking to Francis gave me the sensation of settling slowly to the bottom of the ocean.”

— Harper Lee

137. “Angel-bright, life-in-death; get off the road, don’t suck my breath.”

— Harper Lee

138. “Thought you could kill my Snow-on-the-Mountain, did you? Well, Jessie says that the top’s growing back out. Next time you’ll know how to do it right, won’t you? You’ll pull it up by the roots, won’t you?”

— Harper Lee

139. “Love’s the only thing in this world that is unequivocal. There are different kinds of love, certainly, but it’s a you-do or you-don’t proposition with them all.”

— Harper Lee

140. “A licking hurts but it doesn’t last.”

— Harper Lee

141. “There’s just some kind of men you have to shoot before you can say hidy to ’em. Even then, they ain’t worth the bullet it takes to shoot ’em.”

— Harper Lee

142. “We said good-bye, and Dill went inside the house. He evidently remembered he was engaged to me, for he ran back out and kissed me swiftly in front of Jem. “Yawl write, hear?” he bawled after us.”

— Harper Lee

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

— Harper Lee

144. “He turned out the light and went into Jem’s room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.”

— Harper Lee

145. “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

146. “Thus we came to know Dill as a pocket Merlin, whose head teemed with eccentric plans, strange longings, and quaint fancies – Scout.”

— Harper Lee

147. “What happened after that had a dreamlike quality: in a dream I saw the jury return, moving like underwater swimmers, and Judge Taylor’s voice came from far away, and was tiny. I saw something only a lawyer’s child could be expected to see, could be expected to watch for, and it was like watching Atticus walk into the street, raise a rifle to his shoulder and pull the trigger, but watching all the time knowing that the gun was empty.”

— Harper Lee

148. “Love whom you will but marry your own kind.”

— Harper Lee

149. “But I never figured out how Atticus knew I was listening, and it was not until many years later that I realized he wanted me to hear every word he said.”

— Harper Lee

150. “If we followed our feelings all the time, we’d be like cats chasin’ their tails.”

— Harper Lee