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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
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Harper Lee
Age: 89 †
Born: 1926
Born: April 28
Died: 2016
Died: February 19
Musician
Novelist
Poet Lawyer
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
Monroeville
Alabama
Nelle Harper Lee
Please
Discontent
Worth
Operation
Writer
Writes
Divine
Salt
Self
Demon
Writing
Operations
Endless
Exploratory
Necessarily
Exorcism
More quotes by Harper Lee
Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives.
Harper Lee
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
I have said what I wanted to say and I will not say it again.
Harper Lee
The remainder of my schooldays were no more auspicious than the first. Indeed, they were an endless Project that slowly evolved into a Unit, in which miles of construction paper and wax crayon were expended by the State of Alabama in its well-meaning but fruitless efforts to teach me Group Dynamics.
Harper Lee
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
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
I'm still old-fashioned. I love dusty old books and libraries.
Harper Lee
Writing is something you'll never learn in any university or at any school. It's something that is within you, and if it isn't there, nothing can put it there.
Harper Lee
Havin' a gun around's an invitation to somebody to shoot you.
Harper Lee
When they finally saw him, why he hadn't done any of those things... Atticus, he was real nice... His hands were under my chin, pulling up the cover, tucking it around me. Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.
Harper Lee
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
I don't hafta take his sass
Harper Lee
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. Naw, Jem, I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.
Harper Lee
As a reader I loathe introductions...Introductions inhibit pleasure, they kill the joy of anticipation, they frustrate curiosity.
Harper Lee
Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.
Harper Lee
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.
Harper Lee
Now that I was compelled to think about it, reading was something that just came to me, as learning to fasten the seat of my union suit without looking around, or achieving two bows from a snarl of shoelaces.
Harper Lee
Are you proud of yourself tonight that you have insulted a total stranger whose circumstances you know nothing about?
Harper Lee
That boy is your company. And if he wants to eat up that tablecloth, you let him, you hear?
Harper Lee
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. Try fighting with your head for a change...
Harper Lee