I shall never marry, Atticus."
"Why?"
"I might have children.


Harper Lee

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People are not an interruption of our business. People are our business.
A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes.
It is hard to look up to a leader who keeps his ear to the ground.
The most wasted day of all is that in which we have not laughed.
The more intelligent a man is, the more originality he discovers in men. Ordinary people see no diff...
The intelligence is proved not by ease of learning, but by understanding what we learn.
Communication is something so simple and difficult that we can never put it in simple words.
Like threads of silver seen through crystal beads
Let love through good deeds show.
How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
In everyone's heart stirs a great homesickness.
That is the supreme value of history. The study of it is the best guarantee against repeating it.
Our wisdom comes usually from our experience, and our experience comes largely from our experience.
One thing about the school of experience is that it will repeat the lesson if you flunk the first ti...
To reprove small faults within due vehemence, is as absurd as if a man should take a great hammer to...
Faith is like electricity. You can't see it, but you can see the light.
Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it by the handle of anxiety, or by the handle of...
Some families can trace their ancestors back three hundred years, but can't tell you where their chi...
A recent survey was said to prove that the people we Americans most admire are our politicians and d...
If a man defrauds you one time, he is a rascal; if he does it twice, you are a fool.
Flattery looks like friendship, just like a wolf looks like a dog.
Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Courage is always greatest when blended with meekness; intellectual ability is most admired when it ...
Freedom also includes the right to mismanage your own affairs.
Let your friends be the friends of your deliberate choice.
The man who has strong opinions and always says what he thinks is courageous - and friendless.
Friendship is love with understanding.
So few people think. When we find one who really does, we call him a genius
Your life can't go according to plan if you have no plan.
Practicing the Golden Rule is not a sacrifice; it is an investment.
Conversation is an exercise of the mind; gossip is merely an exercise of the tongue.
An expert gossiper knows how much to leave out of a conversation
To live so that you would not be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip, is to have li...
Gossip is sometimes referred to as halitosis of the mind
If you would attain greatness, think no little thoughts.
We are born brave, trusting and greedy, and most of us remain greedy.
People are changed, not by coercion or intimidation, but by example.
Children are natural mimics; they act like their parents in spite of every effort to teach them good...
The guilty catch themselves.
Good habits are formed; bad habits we fall into.
If happiness could be brought, few of us could pay the price.
Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have.
Happiness is in the heart, not in the circumstances.
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
Hatred is a boomerang which is sure to hit you harder than the one at whom you throw it.
Hate pollutes the mind.
If we miraculously became the people we hate, how lovable we would find ourselves.
To feel "fit as a fiddle" you must tone down your middle.
Our health always seems much more valuable after we lose it.
A patient going to a doctor for his first visit was asked, "And whom did you consult before coming t...
"Oh," replied his patient, with no malice aforethought, "he told me to come and see you."
It is impossible to make wisdom hereditary.
Honesty is a question of right or wrong, not a matter of policy.
It is a pleasure to give advice, humiliating to need it, normal to ignore it.
It is almost impossible to smile on the outside without feeling better on the inside.
Too many people confine their exercise to jumping to conclusions, running up bills, stretching the t...
Imagination was given man to compensate for what he is not, and a sense of humor to console him for ...
Humor - the perfect relationship of the parts to the whole.
Our five senses are incomplete without the sixth - a sense of humor.
"What made the deepest impression upon you?" inquired a friend one day of Lincoln, "when you stood i...
It isn't easy for an idea to squeeze itself into a head filled with prejudice.
Too many people run out of ideas long before they run out of words.
Imagination is the pontoon bridge making way for the timid feet of reason.
Practical observation commonly consists of collecting a few facts and loading them with guesses.
Friendship is a living thing that lasts only as long as it is nourished with kindness, empathy and u...
Having supplied them with names, omnipotence, justice, knowledge, Providence, - what are they?
A good laugh is sunshine in a house.
When you laugh, be sure to laugh at what people do and not at what people are.
One look around us ought to show that all our arbitrary measures and bounds have been clamped on us ...
No punishment of the unrighteous has ever been too severe in the eyes of the righteous.
Why keep on enacting laws when we already have more than we can break.
The best leader is the one who has the sense to surround himself with outstanding people and self-re...
Advice is the only commodity on the market where the supply always exceeds the demand.
Successful men follow the same advice they prescribe for others.
You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea
Old age may seem a long way off. But on the day it doesn't, it will be too late to do anything about...
Age withers only the outside.
Where ambition ends happiness begins.
The best answer to answer to anger is silence.
The size of a man is measured by the size of the thing that makes him angry.
A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he is talking about.
People who know the least always argue the most.
If you look for the positive things in life; you will find them.
What we are doing at the moment is more that just one thing added to the rest; it is a memoir.
Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes
The human mind must believe in something, so why not let it believe what it does believe.
He that boasts of his own knowledge proclaims his ignorance
It is better to live richly than to die rich.
On his examination paper a boy wrote, "A natural death is where you die by yourself without a doctor...
Many things are worse than defeat,and compromise with evil is one of them.
Desire for security keeps littleness little and threatens the great with smallness.
We cannot be too earnest, too persistent, too determined, about living superior to the herd-instinct...
A college education never hurt anybody who was willing to learn after he got it.
Shortchange your education now and you may be short of change the rest of your life.
Mistakes are a great educator when one is honest enough to admit them and willing to learn from them
Catch your people doing something right and let them know you appreciate it.
Create the kind of climate in your organization where personal growth is expected, recognized and re...
Enthusiasm is very good lubrication for the mind.
Enthusiasm is that kindling spark which marks the difference between the leaders in every activity a...
There are many roads to hate, but envy is the shortest of them all.
The only person worth envying is he person who doesn't envy.

More Harper Lee

Well, they're Southern people, and if they know you are working at home they think nothing of wa...
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Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it th...
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You've really got to start hitting the books because it's no joke out here.
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Before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't ...
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The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in ...
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You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.
HARPER LEE
I never expected any sort of success with 'Mockingbird'... I sort of hoped someone would lik...
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Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where rea...
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Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.
HARPER LEE
You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you c...
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Now, 75 years [after HARPER LEE Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)......
HARPER LEE
They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions......
HARPER LEE
Naw, Jem. I think that there is just one kind of folks. Folks."

Jen turned and punched hi...
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Atticus, he was real nice."

"Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.
HARPER LEE
I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.
HARPER LEE
Are you proud of yourself tonight that you have insulted a total stranger whose circumstances you kn...
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It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was...
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She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there...
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As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell yo...
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The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.
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I do much of my creative thinking while golfing. If people know you're working at home they think no...
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I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system -- that is n...
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As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you ...
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Folks don't like to have somebody around knowing more than they do. It aggravates em. You're not gon...
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Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.
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It's not time to worry yet
HARPER LEE
There are just some kind of men who-who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learn...
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Things are always better in the morning.
HARPER LEE
Pass the damn ham, please.
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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 m...
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Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our ...
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I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year.
Scout
HARPER LEE
We're paying the highest tribute you can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It's that simple.
HARPER LEE
If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, w...
HARPER LEE
Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to wi...
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When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness sake. But don't make a production of it. C...
HARPER LEE
It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor t...
HARPER LEE
You just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don't yo...
HARPER LEE
With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable.
HARPER LEE
Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gar...
HARPER LEE
People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.
HARPER LEE
Atticus said to Jem one day, "I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you’ll...
HARPER LEE
Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts.
HARPER LEE
People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.
HARPER LEE
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a g...
HARPER LEE
Delete the adjectives and [you'll] have the facts.
HARPER LEE
Atticus, you must be wrong."

"How's that?"

"Well, most folks seem to think t...
HARPER LEE
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a g...
HARPER LEE
Before I can live with other folks, I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide...
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Many receive advice, only the wise profit from it.
HARPER LEE
Dill said striking a match under a turtle was hateful.
"Ain't hateful, just persuades him- 's n...
HARPER LEE
They've done it before and they'll do it again and when they do it -- seems that only the children w...
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A mob's always made up of people, no matter what. Mr. Cunningham was part of a mob last night, but h...
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One must lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one can't do anything about them.
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Ladies in bunches always filled me with vague apprehension and a firm desire to be elsewhere.
HARPER LEE
Some negroes lie, some are immoral, some negro men are not be trusted around women - black and white...
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People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for, and they have a right to subj...
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There are just some kind of men who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned t...
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Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.
HARPER LEE
Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o-clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft tea-cakes...
HARPER LEE
I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system -- that is ...
HARPER LEE
I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.
HARPER LEE
Hey Boo.
HARPER LEE
From childhood on, I did sit in the courtroom watching my father argue cases and talk to juries.
HARPER LEE
In other words, all I want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama
HARPER LEE
Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it. Somehow, it was hotter then. Men's ...
HARPER LEE
I need a watchman to tell me this is what a man says but this is what he means, to draw a line down ...
HARPER LEE
Never, never, never, on cross-examination ask a witness a question you don't already know the answer...
HARPER LEE
Again, as I had often met it in my own church, I was confronted with the Impurity of Women doctrine ...
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First of all," he said, "if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with ...
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You've really got to start hitting the books because it's no joke out here.
HARPER LEE
"“I think I’ll be a clown when I get grown….. Yes, sir, a clown. There ain’t one thing in th...
HARPER LEE
Folks don't like to have somebody around knowing more than they do.
HARPER LEE
Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abid...
HARPER LEE
You confused your father with God. You never saw him as a man with a man’s heart, and a man’s fa...
HARPER LEE
Если ты человек вежливый, говори с другими не про то, чт...
HARPER LEE
Madam, my father has left me flopping like a flounder at low tide and you say what's the matter.
HARPER LEE
But a man who has lived by truth—and you have believed in what he has lived—he does not leave yo...
HARPER LEE
Go away, the old buildings said. There is no place for you here. You are not wanted. We have secrets...
HARPER LEE
Every man’s island, Jean Louise, every man’s watchman, is his conscience. There is no such thing...
HARPER LEE
If you did not want much, there was plenty.
HARPER LEE
I wonder how much of the day I spend just callin' after you.
HARPER LEE
She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a co...
HARPER LEE
As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you ...
HARPER LEE
Well, they're Southern people, and if they know you are working at home they think nothing of walkin...
HARPER LEE
I can't beat you, I can't join you.
HARPER LEE
The book to read is not the one that thinks for you but the one which makes you think.
HARPER LEE
No, everybody's gotta learn, nobody's born knowin'. That Walter's as smart as he can be, he just get...
HARPER LEE
Cal had told her all girls had it, it was natural as breathing, it was a sign they were growing up, ...
HARPER LEE
Jem, naturally, was Boo: he went under the front steps and shrieked and howled from time to time.
HARPER LEE
When it was time to play Boo's big scene, Jem would sneak into the house, steal the scissors from th...
HARPER LEE
Ladies pick funny things to be proud of.
HARPER LEE
Atticus---" ...said Jem bleakly. "How could they do it, how could they?"
"I don't know, but the...
HARPER LEE
Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back...
HARPER LEE
Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.
HARPER LEE
They had never been able to sustain fifteen minutes’ conversation with one another without advanci...
HARPER LEE
You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
HARPER LEE
As you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to others, and don't think you are the most import...
HARPER LEE
всякая толпа состоит из людей.
HARPER LEE
So it took an eight-year-old child to bring 'em to their senses.... That proves something - that a g...
HARPER LEE
When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.
HARPER LEE
I was not so sure, but Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that’s w...
HARPER LEE
That boy is your company. And if he wants to eat up that tablecloth, you let him, you hear?
HARPER LEE
Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy head. He could read two books to m...
HARPER LEE
She was the bravest person I ever knew.
HARPER LEE
I wanted you to see something about her—I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getti...
HARPER LEE
...summer was the swiftness with which Dill would reach up and kiss me when Jem was not looking, the...
HARPER LEE
Things are never as bad as they seem.
HARPER LEE
Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. It's knowing you're licked before you begin but you beg...
HARPER LEE
Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they're not a...
HARPER LEE
You deny them hope. Any man in this world, Atticus, any man who has a head and arms and legs, was bo...
HARPER LEE
As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place h...
HARPER LEE
Whatever she says to you, it’s your job
not to let her make you mad.
HARPER LEE
Boo and I walked up the steps to the porch. His fingers found the doorknob. He gently released my ha...
HARPER LEE
Jem was twelve. He was difficult to live with, inconsistent, moody. His appetite was appalling, and ...
HARPER LEE
You don't have to learn much out of books, it's like if you want to learn about cows, you go milk on...
HARPER LEE
You can't really get to know a person until you get in their shoes and walk around in them.
HARPER LEE
I try to give'em a reason, you see. It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason.
HARPER LEE
You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—”
HARPER LEE
If this thing's hushed up it'll be a simple denial to Jem of the way I've tried to raise him. Someti...
HARPER LEE
Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read
HARPER LEE
When Atticus came home to dinner he found me crouched down aiming across the street. "What are you s...
HARPER LEE
Naw, Jem, I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.
HARPER LEE
I don't see why I have to when he doesn't.
Then listen.
HARPER LEE
(When Alabama seceded from the Union on January 11, 1861, Winston County seceded from Alabama, and e...
HARPER LEE
Kış günleri beni saatlerce ağaçevde oturmuş okul bahçesini seyrederken görebilirdiniz, Jem'i...
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[T]he time your friends need you is when they’re wrong, Jean Louise. They don’t need you when th...
HARPER LEE
I'm painfully middle class.
VALERIE HARPER
I used to get some ego thing out of saying I wasn't a star, just an actress. Forget it. I'm ...
VALERIE HARPER
I really want Americans, and all of us, to be less afraid of death, and know that it's a passage...
VALERIE HARPER
Do not tell somebody how to vote, just go up to them and tell them what Fahrenheit 9/11 meant to you...
VALERIE HARPER
I'm trying to live every moment as much as I can.
VALERIE HARPER
We're all terminal; none of us are getting out of this alive.
VALERIE HARPER
We all have a way to contribute, to your community, to your family, whatever it is you can do.
VALERIE HARPER
Life does not owe me a shred.
VALERIE HARPER
I never sold any of my pieces. I had all the money I wanted. Then I would have lost my sculptures an...
IRVING HARPER
I don't have a complex mind.
IRVING HARPER
At 93, I'm not looking forward to fame and fortune.
IRVING HARPER
With a computer, there are too many choices, and I always liked working within limits. You know, if ...
IRVING HARPER
I want to play the game hard. I want to ram it down your throat, put you into left field when I'...
BRYCE HARPER
I've gotten a firsthand view at the destruction that black men and black women not being able to...
HILL HARPER
I was that weird kid that checked out all of the non-fiction paranormal studies books from the libra...
MOLLY HARPER
Every song has a bouquet, which is the music. If you can put words with something that is really apt...
ROY HARPER
I grew up listening to Switchfoot. I love Switchfoot; they're a great band. John Foreman is awes...
SHANE HARPER
Canada is in budgetary deficit now only because of the recession, only because of stimulus measures,...
STEPHEN HARPER
I think because we're such a trading nation, I think Canadians understand that first and foremos...
STEPHEN HARPER
I am your sire. I am to guide you through your first days as a vampire. Your first feeding is a rite...
MOLLY HARPER
You look like gold. I've been fooled before, but now I know I've made the mistake in the pas...
BEN HARPER
It's a privilege to have a concealed weapons permit. Having no oversight is scary. We especially wan...
ADRIA HARPER
By the time the public gets to see the records, it's already too late.
ADRIA HARPER
I feel the spirit of the Sunshine Law can be violated by calling a meeting a workshop and not allowi...
ADRIA HARPER
This kicks it off with a bang. The public was invited and now they are being told they can't attend,...
ADRIA HARPER
It's an issue of public importance that's pretty critical at this period.
ADRIA HARPER
It's unfortunate that public officials feel that the public is a hindrance is getting their work don...
ADRIA HARPER
To simply muzzle someone because they're being critical of what their public servants are doing is r...
ADRIA HARPER
Public records are critical for the public's oversight. It's all potentially relevant and useful inf...
ADRIA HARPER
Dick called, but he just left dirty voice-mail messages. Let's just say if I'm ever in the market fo...
MOLLY HARPER
Helpless, unknown, and unremembered, most human beings, however sensitive, idealistic, intelligent, ...
RALPH HARPER
We should have been there shoulder to shoulder with our allies. Our concern is the instability of ou...
STEPHEN HARPER
I would like to acquire a document autographed by John Witherspoon, who signed the Declaration of In...
GREGG HARPER
I am a disaster magnet. I came home from our first anniversary vacation with jellyfish stings, a pun...
MOLLY HARPER
My friend is a former race car driver, so he races for Mercedes, and I root for him. I have a car th...
HILL HARPER
We've got to see a state where the Afghan government can handle its own day-to-day security.
STEPHEN HARPER
Canadians know that the promise of a recession didn't happen because of anything we did here. If...
STEPHEN HARPER
Playing football, I'm getting chills just thinking about it. That first knock of the game, you a...
BRYCE HARPER
My first two books, 'Letters to a Young Brother' and 'Letters to a Young Sister,' we...
HILL HARPER
But I would never insult the people that love this music and I would never insult the blessing of mu...
BEN HARPER
As long as the songs are strong, I think you can express yourself in any style and have it be soulfu...
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It was a huge deal, a huge musical discovery that became life lessons learned. You can't return from...
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The Blind Boys are truly the deepest well of American musical heritage you can discover.
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It will make a weak man mighty. it will make a mighty man fall. It will fill your heart and hands or...
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If you don't like my fire, Then don't come around Cause I'm gonna burn one down.
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Life is short and if you're looking for extension, you had best do well. 'Cause there's good deeds a...
BEN HARPER
Life is short and if you're looking for extension, you had best do well. 'Cause there's good deeds a...
BEN HARPER
It's so hard to so, so easy to say. But sometimes, sometimes you just have to walk away.
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You look like gold. I've been fooled before, but now i know I've made the mistake in the past. But n...
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I don't want the George Clooney lifelong bachelorhood. If I found the right person, I would comm...
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That's my personal view I would say most in my caucus agree with that but there are some who don...
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because daytime leaves vampires less than, well, conscious, I told him, “Take your muffins to Bost...
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My choice is what I choose to do,
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I think in Atlantic Canada, because of what happened in the decades following Confederation, there i...
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I'm attending to my legacy, making sure that it travels the universe in the best shape I can get...
ROY HARPER
Life is short and if you're looking for extension, you had best do well. 'Cause there's ...
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Certainly, those of us in the entertainment industry, we are part of creating fear in people - '...
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When it comes to partnership, some humans can make their lives alone - it's possible. But creati...
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Baseball players have such a bad rap of, like, 'We don't work out or we're not strong or...
BRYCE HARPER
I'd rather be a good person off the field than a good baseball player on the field.
BRYCE HARPER
It's not like I'm out eating McDonald's and Del Taco every night. I eat good: my mom fix...
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My favorite vacation spot is a beautiful beach. I've been to many, many beaches on many continen...
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The Lord blesses you and keeps you; the Lord makes His face shines upon you and be gracious to you; ...
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Dr. King said, 'We are all tied together in a garment of mutual destiny.' Which says to me n...
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I grew up with a heavy diet of gospel, folk, and blues because those are kind of the cornerstones of...
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I grew up with the Blind Boys' music. My family owns a music store in Claremont, California, cal...
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I have lived in Kentucky all of my life. I am married to my high school sweetheart, David, a local p...
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