Harper Lee
Harper Lee
Nelle Harper Lee, better known by her pen name Harper Lee, was an American novelist widely known for To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960. Immediately successful, it won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and has become a classic of modern American literature. Though Lee had only published this single book, in 2007 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contribution to literature. Additionally, Lee received numerous honorary degrees, though she declined to speak on those occasions. She...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth28 April 1926
CityMonroeville, AL
CountryUnited States of America
I like to write. Sometimes I'm afraid that I like it too much because when I get into work I don't want to leave it. As a result I'll go for days and days without leaving the house or wherever I happen to be. I'll go out long enough to get papers and pick up some food and that's it. It's strange, but instead of hating writing I love it too much.
You know, many writers really don't like to write. I think this the chief complaint of so many. They hate to write; they do it under the compulsion that makes any artist the victim he is, but they loathe the process of sitting down trying to turn thoughts into reasonable sentences.
Folks don't like to have somebody around knowing more than they do. It aggravates em. You're not gonna change any of them by talking right, they've got to want to learn themselves, and when they don't want to learn there's nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language.
I think Ill be a clown when I get grown.. Yes, sir, a clown. There aint one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so Im gonna join the circus and laugh my head off Im gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks. Just looka yonder, every one of em oughta be ridin a broomstick.
From childhood on, I did sit in the courtroom watching my father argue cases and talk to juries.
Many receive advice, only the wise profit from it.
Before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.
Well, they're Southern people, and if they know you are working at home they think nothing of walking right in for coffee. But they wouldn't dream of interrupting you at golf.
Never, never, never, on cross-examination ask a witness a question you don't already know the answer to . . . . Do it, and you'll often get an answer you I don't want, an answer that might wreck your case.
Everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowing.
Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it. Somehow, it was hotter then. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon after their three o'clock naps. And by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting from sweating and sweet talcum. The day was twenty-four hours long, but it seemed longer. There's no hurry, for there's nowhere to go and nothing to buy...and no money to buy it with.
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.
I've been writing as long as I've been able to form words. I never wrote with an idea of publishing anything until I began working on '[To Kill a] Mockingbird'. I think that what went before may have been a rather subconscious form of learning how to write, of training myself.
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.