Harper Lee
Novelist
"People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for."
Tkam quotes
Tkam
30 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Harper Lee
Novelist
"Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of another... There are just some kind of men who - who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results."
Harper Lee
Novelist
"...but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself."
Harper Lee
Novelist
"Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts."
Harper Lee
Novelist
"The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box."
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"People in their right minds never take pride in their talents."
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"I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks."
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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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"You rarely win, but sometimes you do."
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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."
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"I think I'll be a clown when I get grown.... There ain't one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm gonna join the circus and laugh my head off."
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"When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion faster than adults, and evasion simply muddles 'em."
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"I think I'll be a clown when I get grown,' said Dill. Jem and I stopped in our tracks. Yes sir, a clown,' he said. 'There ain't one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.' You got it backwards, Dill,' said Jem. 'Clowns are sad, it's folks that laugh at them.' Well I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks."
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"If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time. It's because he wants to stay inside."
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"When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness' sake."
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"With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable."
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"You can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family, an' they're still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge 'em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don't."
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"I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year. Scout"
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"Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they're not attracting attention with it."
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"Let the dead bury the dead."
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"That proves something- that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human."
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"Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."
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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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"You can choose your friends, but you sho' can't choose your family."
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"Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand."
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