The 80 Best Harper Lee Quotes From The Author Of 'To Kill A Mockingbird'

Nelle Harper Lee was an American novelist best known for her 1960 novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’

‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and has become a classic of modern American literature. Despite only having published two novels, Lee was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 for her contribution to literature.

Read on to find the best Harper Lee quotes about books, Harper Lee quotes about love, Harper Lee quotes about writing,  Harper Lee quotes about death, Harper Lee quotes about courage, Harper Lee quotes about justice, Harper Lee quotes about character, and more. In these quotes,  you'll find out about Harper Lee's life through her memorable characters.

Our list of Harper Lee quotes is sure to leave you feeling inspired and uplifted. For more literary content, you can check out these Agatha Christie quotes and T. S. Eliot quotes.
 

Poignant Harper Lee Quotes

If you are a fan of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ you are sure to love our collection of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Harper Lee quotes. Although Scout was not based on Harper Lee, they share many similarities, such as their tomboy nature.

1.     "Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."

-Scout Finch.

2. "Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I’d have the facts."

-Scout Finch.

3. "I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year."

-Scout Finch.

4. "It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived."

-Scout Finch.

5. "Atticus says you can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family"

-Jem Finch.

6. "There are just some kind of men 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."

-Miss Maudie.

7. "Sometimes the bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of - oh, of your father."

-Miss Maudie.

8. "The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

-Atticus Finch.

9. "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

-Atticus Finch.

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

-Atticus Finch.

11.  "Atticus finch is the same in his house as he is on public streets."

-Miss Maudie.

12.  "Every lawyer gets one case in his life that affects him personally - this one’s mine I guess."

-Atticus Finch.

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

-Miss Maudie.

14.  "Tom Robinson's case is something that goes to the essence of every man's conscience."

-Atticus Finch.

15.  "I wanted you to see what real courage is instead of getting the idea into your head that courage is a man with a gun in his hand."

-Atticus Finch.

16.  "That boy might go to the chair, but he's not going 'till the truths told, and you know what the truth is."

-Atticus Finch.

17.  "All the little man on the witness stand had that made him any better than his neighbor was that if he scrubbed his skin with lye soap in hot water - his skin was white."

-Scout Finch.

18.  "I felt right sorry for her, she seemed to try more than the rest of 'em."

-Tom Robinson.

19.  "There’s some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your fathers one of them."

- Miss Maudie.

20.  "I think there’s just one type of folks – folks."

-Scout Finch.

Inspirational Harper Lee Quotes

The novel, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ brought great literary acclaim and success to Harper Lee despite her editors’ reservations. If you are looking for the best ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Harper Lee quotes to be inspired by, check out our collection of different character quotes below.  

21.  "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."

-Scout Finch.

22.  "I thought I wanted to be a lawyer but I ain’t so sure now!"

-Jem Finch.

23.   "Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him."

-Atticus Finch.

24.  "Bad language is a stage all children go through."

-Atticus Finch.

25.  "It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name."

-Atticus Finch.

26.  "There’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads—they couldn’t be fair if they tried."

-Atticus Finch.

27.  "Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy...but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird."

-Miss Maudie.

28.  "You just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let ‘em get your goat."

-Atticus Finch.

29.   "You're not gonna change any of them by talkin' right."

-Calpurnia.

30.  "Somewhere, I had received the impression that fine folks were people who did the best they could with the sense they had."

-Scout Finch.

31.  "I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time. It's because he wants to stay inside."

-Jem Finch.

32.  "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."

-Atticus Finch.

33.  "Jem, how can you hate Hitler so bad an' then turn around and be ugly about folks right here at home ?"

-Scout Finch.

34.   "I do my best to love everybody…I’m hard put, sometimes—baby."

-Atticus Finch.

35.  "Scout: Atticus, you must be wrong….

Atticus: How’s that?

Scout: Well, most folks seem to think they’re right and you’re wrong…."

36.  "The main one is, if I didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not to do something again."    

-Atticus Finch.

37.  Judge not my passion, by my want of skill,  many love well, though they express it ill."

-Atticus Finch.

38.  "How could they do it, how could they?" "I don’t know, but they did it. They’ve done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do it—seems that only children weep."

-Atticus Finch.

39.  "It is not enough to limit your love to your own nation, to your own group. you must respond with love even to those outside of it...this concept enables people to live together not as nations, but as the human race."

-Atticus Finch.

40.  "The only remedy for this is not to let it beat you."

-Atticus Finch.

Powerful Harper Lee Quotes

If you are looking for some powerful ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Harper Lee quotes, you will love our list.

41.  "You children made Walter Cunningham stand in my shoes for a minute. That was enough."

-Atticus Finch.

42.  "As you say, Jean Louise, there’s only one thing higher than the court in this country, and that’s the constitution."

-Atticus Finch.

43.  "There’s a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep ‘em all away from you. That’s never possible."

-Atticus Finch.

44.  "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."

-Atticus Finch.

45.  "Try fighting with your head for a change…it’s a good one, even if it does resist learning."

-Atticus Finch.

46.  "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."

-Atticus Finch.

47.  "Whether Maycomb knows it or not, we’re paying the highest tribute we can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It’s that simple."

-Miss Maudie.

48.  "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."

-Atticus Finch.

49.  "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."

-Atticus Finch.

50.  "It’s different this time, he said. This time we aren’t fighting the Yankees, we’re fighting our friends. But remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they’re still our friends and this is still our home."

-Atticus Finch.

51.  "Aunt Alexandra’s vision of my deportment involved playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the add-a-pearl necklace she gave me when I was born; furthermore, I should be a ray of sunshine in my father’s lonely life. I suggested that one could be a ray of sunshine in pants just as well."

-Scout Finch.

52.  "Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that’s why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off and find some to play with."

-Scout Finch.

53.  "Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives."

-Scout Finch.

54.  "I ain’t cynical, Miss Alexandra. Tellin’ the truth’s not cynical, is it?"

-Charles Baker Harris Dill.

55.  "Well I’m gonna be a new kind of clown. I’m gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks."

- Charles Baker Harris Dill.

56.  "Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed."

-Scout Finch.

57.  "The way that man called him 'boy' all the time an' sneered at him, an' looked around at the jury every time he answered— …it ain't right, somehow it ain't right to do 'em that way. Hasn't anybody got any business talkin' like that—it just makes me sick."

-Charles Baker Harris Dill.

58.  "After my bout with Cecil Jacobs when I committed myself to a policy of cowardice, word got around that scout finch wouldn't fight any more, her daddy wouldn't let her."

-Scout Finch.

59.  "Hush your mouth! Don't matter who they are, anybody sets foot in this house's yo' comp'ny, and don't you let me catch you remarkin' on their ways like you was so high and mighty!"

-Calpurnia.

60.  "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."

-Scout Finch.

Profound Harper Lee Quotes

Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ contains many meaningful and touching quotes. If you are looking for more such profound nuggets of wisdom, pick a quote from our list of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Harper Lee quotes.

61.  "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."

-Atticus Finch.

62.  "No, everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowin’. That Walter’s as smart as he can be, he just gets held back sometimes because he has to stay out and help his daddy. Nothin’s wrong with him."

-Scout Finch.

63.  "Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened 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."

-Scout Finch.

64.  "Calpurnia 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."

-Scout Finch.

65.  "I felt the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on me, and for the second time in my life, I thought of running away immediately."

-Scout Finch.

66.  "With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable."

-Scout Finch.

67.  "Ladies in bunches always filled me with vague apprehension and a firm desire to be elsewhere."

-Scout Finch.

68.  "I was far too old and too big for such childish things, and the sooner I learned to hold in, the better off everybody would be."

-Scout Finch.

69.  "I said I would like it very much, which was a lie, but one must lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one can’t do anything about them."

-Scout Finch.

70.  "Maybe you’ll look back on this with some compassion and some feeling that I didn’t let you down."

-Atticus Finch.

71.   "There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie."

-Atticus Finch.

72.  "I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this defendant to his family."

-Atticus Finch.

73.  "Things are always better in the morning."

-Scout Finch.

74.  "No need to be afraid of him, son. He’s all bluff."

-Atticus Finch.

75.  "She lied in an effort to get rid of her own guilt. Now I say guilt, gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society."

- Atticus Finch.

76.  "The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with ever took place."

-Atticus Finch.

77.  "You can pet him, Mr. Arthur. He's asleep, couldn't if he was awake, though. He wouldn't let you. Go ahead."

-Scout Finch.

Timeless Harper Lee Quotes

Harper Lee’s wrote many memorable characters in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ Looking for quotes on courage, justice, integrity and fairness? You are sure to find a perfect pick from our list of timeless Harper Lee quotes from ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. Enjoy!

78.  "I was more at home in my father's world. People like Mr. Heck Tate did not trap you with innocent questions to make fun of you; even Jem was not highly critical unless you said something stupid."

-Scout Finch.

79.  "I'm not a very good man, sir, but I am sheriff of Maycomb County. l lived in this town all my life an' I’m goin' on forty-three years old. Know everything that's happened here since before I was born."

-Heck Tate.

80. "Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what."

-Atticus Finch.                

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for The 100 Best Harper Lee Quotes From The Author Of 'To Kill A Mockingbird', then why not take a look at these William Wordsworth quotes or Aesop quotes.