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It's not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike--in the second place, folks don't like to have somebody around knowin' more than they do.

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
Folks
Necessary
Second
Somebody
Tell
Place
Knowin
Around
Ladylike
Like
Mockingbird

More quotes by Harper Lee

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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
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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.
Harper Lee
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Ladies pick funny things to be proud of.
Harper Lee
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You can pet him, Mr. Arthur. He's asleep.
Harper Lee
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That boy is your company. And if he wants to eat up that tablecloth, you let him, you hear?
Harper Lee
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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
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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
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I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.
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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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
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Now...in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, ipods and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books.
Harper Lee
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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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I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.
Harper Lee
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When stalking one’s prey, it is best to take one’s time. Say nothing, and as sure as eggs he will become curious and emerge.
Harper Lee
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Havin' a gun around's an invitation to somebody to shoot you.
Harper Lee
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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.
Harper Lee
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...in other words, all I want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama Interview - March 1964
Harper Lee
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Atticus said that Jem was trying hard to forget something, but what he was really doing was storing it away for a while, until enough time passed. Then he would be able to think about it and sort things out. When he was able to think about it, Jem would be himself again.
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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I'm still old-fashioned. I love dusty old books and libraries.
Harper Lee