Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand. Harper Lee More Quotes by Harper Lee More Quotes From Harper Lee I do much of my creative thinking while golfing. If people know you're working at home they think nothing of walking in for a cup of coffee, but wouldn't dream of interrupting on the golf course. Harper Lee coffee dream home It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn’t hurt you. Harper Lee hurt names thinking Rest assured, as long as I am alive any book purporting to be with my cooperation is a falsehood. Harper Lee alive long book summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screeneed porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat;it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape. Harper Lee color summer sleep 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 light morning night 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. Harper Lee summer heart children It's not time to worry yet Harper Lee worry Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin'. Harper Lee mockingbird missing father But sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down. Harper Lee chips sometimes way 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. Harper Lee black-and-white men lying Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself...It's a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent. Harper Lee exorcism self writing 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. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up. Harper Lee integrity believe reality Writing is simply something you must do. It's rather like virtue in that it is its own reward. Harper Lee rewards virtue writing 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 tkam squares men Wordsworth was right when he said that we trail clouds of glory as we come into the world, that we are born with a divine sense of perception. As we grow older, the world closes in on us, and we gradually lose the freshness of viewpoint that we had as children. That is why I think children should get to know this country while they are young. Harper Lee country children thinking To be a serious writer requires discipline that is iron fisted. It's sitting down and doing it whether you think you have it in you or not. Everyday. Alone. Without interruption. Contrary to what most people think, there is no glamour to writing. In fact, it's heartbreak most of the time. Harper Lee iron writing thinking Naturally, you don't sit down in "white hot inspiration" and write with a burning flame in front of you. But since I knew I could never be happy being anything but a writer, and Mockingbird put itself together for me so accommodatingly, I kept at it because I knew it had to be my first novel, for better or for worse. Harper Lee flames inspiration writing Finders were keepers unless title was proven. Harper Lee proven keepers titles Somewhere, I had received the impression that Fine Folks were people who did the best they could with the sense they had, but Aunt Alexandra was of the opinion, obliquely expressed, that the longer a family had been squatting on one patch of land the finer it was. Harper Lee aunt land people She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl. Harper Lee girl skills thinking
