On Friday morning, To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee passed away at her home in Alabama. Her cause of death has not been released at the time of this writing. She was 89 years old.
Lee was a Pulitzer Prize winner and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Although she only published two novels — To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960 and Go Set a Watchman in 2015 — both of her books made headlines. Mockingbird was an immediate success upon publication, and Watchman sparked criticism months before its release last summer.
Fans remember Lee's novels for their criticism of the Southern "values" that kept prejudice entrenched in mainstream society. Although he's a controversial character, the Atticus Finch we fell in love with in Mockingbird was a man trying to teach his children morals. In Watchman, Scout — now going by Jean Louise — must come to terms with her family's racism when she returns home to Maycomb after spending her adulthood in New York City.
In both of her novels, Lee gave us quotes to live by. Here are 12 of her best.
1. "You know the character Boo Radley? Well, if you know Boo, then you understand why I wouldn’t be doing an interview. Because I am really Boo."
—Harper Lee, On why she didn't agree to be interviewed by Oprah Winfrey, as told by Oprah.
2. "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."
—Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird
3. "The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."
—Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird
4. "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."
—Miss Maudie, To Kill a Mockingbird
5. "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand."
—Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird
6. "I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks."
—Scout Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird
7. "Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends."
—Jack Finch, Go Set a Watchman
8. "Things are always better in the morning."
—Scout Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird
9. "As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place he’ll look for his lessons."
—Jack Finch, Go Set a Watchman
10. "Love’s the only thing in this world that is unequivocal. There are different kinds of love, certainly, but it’s a you-do or you-don’t proposition with them all."
—Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman
11. "She was a person who, when confronted with an easy way out, always took the hard way."
—Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman
12. "I said I would like it very much, which was a lie, but one must lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one can't do anything about them."
—Scout Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird
Images: Giphy (12)
