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

Categorized in : Reality Believe Integrity

Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. by Harper Lee

Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.

mockingbird sin remember

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.

eye simple thinking

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

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

might children

Mutual defiance made them alike. by Harper Lee

Mutual defiance made them alike.

finches defiance made

Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remembe... by Harper Lee

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

tkam ems blue

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

christian men

Turtles don't feel, stupid," said Jem. "Were you ever a turtle, h... by Harper Lee

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

turtles stupid said

Nothing is more deadly than a deserted, waiting street. by Harper Lee

Nothing is more deadly than a deserted, waiting street.

deserted streets waiting

Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand.

tkam mad people

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

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

jem-and-scout powerful fists

Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy head. He could read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of his own inventions. He could add and subtract faster than lightning, but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept, waiting to be gathered like morning lilies.

morning beautiful baby

Folks don't like to have somebody around knowing more than they d... by Harper Lee

Folks don't like to have somebody around knowing more than they do.

mockingbird knowing literature

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.

examination questions-and-answers baby

Way back about nineteen-twenty there was a Klan... The Ku Klux's... by Harper Lee

Way back about nineteen-twenty there was a Klan... The Ku Klux's gone... It'll never come back.

ku-klux-klan nineteen twenties

You can choose your friends, but you sho' can't choose your famil... by Harper Lee

You can choose your friends, but you sho' can't choose your family.

jem-and-scout tkam most-powerful

I have said what I wanted to say and I will not say it again. by Harper Lee

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

said wanted

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.

literature home way

I don't hafta take his sass by Harper Lee

I don't hafta take his sass

sass

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.

writing ideas thinking

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. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.