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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.

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
Never
University
Within
Learn
School
Nothing
Writing
Something

More quotes by 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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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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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
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Everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowing.
Harper Lee
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I try to give'em a reason, you see. It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason.
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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I'm little but I'm old.
Harper Lee
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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.
Harper Lee
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It's not time to worry yet
Harper Lee
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Dill said striking a match under a turtle was hateful. “How do you know a match don't hurt him?” “Turtles can't feel, stupid,” said Jem. “Where you ever a turtle, huh?
Harper Lee
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Rest assured, as long as I am alive any book purporting to be with my cooperation is a falsehood.
Harper Lee
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People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.
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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Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.
Harper Lee
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Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin'.
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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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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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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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
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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