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"Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts."
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"You spill a lot of beans in historical fiction. Crime fiction is about spilling no beans at all. You spill the least beans you possibly can. So because I had already written historical fiction before I was really good at the spilling beans section, but the new skill I had to learn when I was writing Brighton Belle was difficult. I had to avoid the equivalent of shouting, "this character's a murderer! Look who did it!."
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Personal Development
"Don't say it was delightful; make us say delightful when we've read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers Please will you do the job for me."
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Personal Development
"Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy."
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Personal Development
"We write, edit, and rewrite the story of our own life employing descriptive words, metaphors, and symbols. Our lives are full of symbols including those supplied by nature and religion, which touch upon the mystical and spiritual aspects of life. Symbols inspire enduring hope by formulating idealist expectations."
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Personal Development
"I'm a fairly undisciplined writer."
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Personal Development
"Writers aren't exactly people, they're a bunch of people trying to be one person."
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Personal Development
"My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
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Personal Development
"Pour your heart onto the page."
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Personal Development
"One of my rules is never explain. A writer is a lot like a magician, if you explain how the trick works then a lot of the magic turns mundane."
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Personal Development
"Twofold misjudgement. - The misfortune suffered by clear-minded and easily understood writers is that they are taken for shallow and thus little effort is expended on reading them: and the good fortune that attends the obscure is that the reader toils at them and ascribes to them the pleasure he has in fact gained from his own zeal."
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"Mary Webster was on the blower. Her advance agents saw Hank and me swimming in the middle of the river last night with no clothes on.H'rm, said Atticus. He touched his glasses. I hope you weren't doing the backstroke."
Humor
"Persecution comes from people who are prejudiced."
Society
"The only thing I'm afraid of about this country is that it's government will someday become so monstrous that the smallest person in it will be trampled underfoot, and then it wouldn't be worth living in. The only thing in America that is still unique in this tired world is that a man can go as far as his brains will take him or he can go to hell if he wants to, but it won't be that way much longer."
Politics
"Are you proud of yourself tonight that you have insulted a total stranger whose circumstances you know nothing about?"
Ethics
"How could this be so, I wondered, as I read Mr. Underwood's editorial. Senseless killing--Tom had been given due process of law to the day of his death; he had been tried openly and convicted by twelve good men and true; my father had fought for him all the way. Then Mr. Underwood's meaning became clear: Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed."
Ethics
"As you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to others, and don't think you are the most important being on earth. Rich or poor, you then can look anyone in the eye and say, 'I'm probably no better than you, but I'm certainly your equal."
Morality
"We're so rarely called on to be Christians, but when we are, we've got men like Atticus to go for us."
Faith
"The gum looked fresh. I sniffed it and it smelled all right. I licked it and waited for a while. When I did not die, I crammed it into my mouth: Wrigley's Double Mint."
Experience
"I mean this: every time I come home, I feel like I'm coming back to the world, and when I leave Macomb it's like leaving the world."
Life
"Again, as I had often met it in my own church, I was confronted with the Impurity of Women doctrine that seemed to preoccupy all clergymen."
Society
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