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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.

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
Gentleman
Time
Code
Guilt
Committed
Merely
Rigid
Gentlemen
Crime
Honored
Broken
Motivated
Society

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People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.
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She knew full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking, she persisted in breaking it.
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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.
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My book had a universal theme. It's not a racial novel. It portrays an aspect of civilization, not necessarily Southern civilization.
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I was not so sure, but 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.
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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.
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As a reader I loathe introductions...Introductions inhibit pleasure, they kill the joy of anticipation, they frustrate curiosity.
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I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.
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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.
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Let the dead bury the dead.
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Miss Caroline seemed unaware that the ragged, denim-shirted and floursack-skirted first grade, most of whom had chopped cotton and fed hogs from the time they were able to walk, were immune to imaginative literature.
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My father is one of the few men I've known who has genuine humility, and it lends him a natural dignity. He has absolutely no ego drive, and so he is one of the most beloved men in this part of the state.
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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.
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Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives.
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They're ugly, but those are the facts of life.
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I shall never marry, Atticus. Why? I might have children.
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Folks were doin' a lot of runnin' that night
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Things are always better in the morning.
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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.
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Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself.
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