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People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.

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
Hear
Powerful
Look
Looks
Mockingbird
People
Empathy
Generally
Listen

More quotes by Harper Lee

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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.
Harper Lee
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We said good-bye, and Dill went inside the house. He evidently remembered he was engaged to me, for he ran back out and kissed me swiftly in front of Jem. Yawl write, hear? he bawled after us.
Harper Lee
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I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.
Harper Lee
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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
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Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.
Harper Lee
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My objectives are very limited. I want to do the best I can with the talent God gave me. I hope to goodness that every novel I do gets better and better, not worse and worse.
Harper Lee
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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 eatit was a thousand colors in a parched landscape.
Harper Lee
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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.
Harper Lee
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Havin' a gun around's an invitation to somebody to shoot you.
Harper Lee
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Next morning I awoke, looked out the window and nearly died of fright. My screams brought Atticus from his bathroom half-shaven. The world's endin', Atticus! Please do something -! I dragged him to the window and pointed. No it's not, he said. It's snowing.
Harper Lee
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But sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down.
Harper Lee
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Atticus said naming people after Confederate generals made slow steady drinkers.
Harper Lee
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Long ago, in a burst of friendliness, Aunty and Uncle Jimmy produced a son named Henry.
Harper Lee
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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.
Harper Lee
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They've done it before and they'll do it again and when they do it -- seems that only the children weep. Good night.
Harper Lee
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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
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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.
Harper Lee
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Everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowing.
Harper Lee
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I didn't know how you were going to do it, but from now on I'll never worry about what'll become of you, son, you'll always have an idea.
Harper Lee
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She's an old lady and she's ill. You just hold your head high and be a gentleman. Whatever she says to you, it's your job not to let her make you mad.
Harper Lee