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Writing is a process of self-discipline you must learn before you can call yourself a writer. There are people who write, but I think they're quite different from people who must write.

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
Think
Call
Thinking
Learn
People
Process
Write
Self
Must
Discipline
Different
Writer
Writing
Quite

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You can choose your friends, but you sho' can't choose your family.
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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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Folks were doin' a lot of runnin' that night
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I have said what I wanted to say and I will not say it again.
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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.
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People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.
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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.
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It's quite a thing, if you've never been in or known a small southern town. The people are not particularly sophisticated, naturally. They're not worldly wise in any way. But they tell you a story whenever they see you.
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I shall never marry, Atticus. Why? I might have children.
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Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy head. He could read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of his own inventions. He could add and subtract faster than lightning, but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept, waiting to be gathered like morning lilies.
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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.
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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.
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For the life of me, I did not understand how he[Atticus] could sit there in cold blood and read a newspaper when his only son stood an excellent chance of being murdered with a Confederate Army relic.
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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.
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Rest assured, as long as I am alive any book purporting to be with my cooperation is a falsehood.
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You can pet him, Mr. Arthur. He's asleep.
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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.
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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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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.
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I try to give'em a reason, you see. It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason.
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