Summary:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain that follows the journey of a young boy named Huck Finn and a runaway slave named Jim as they travel down the Mississippi River on a raft. Along the way, they encounter various obstacles and adventures, including con artists, violent feuds, and near-death experiences. Through these experiences, Huck learns about morality, friendship, and the importance of making one’s own decisions. The novel is known for its use of vernacular language and its commentary on social issues, such as racism and slavery, and has become a classic of American literature.
1. “Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
2. “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter.”
3. “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself.”
4. “It’s lovely to live on a raft.”
5. “I was mighty downhearted; so I made up my mind I wouldn’t ever go anear that house again, because I reckoned I was to blame, somehow.”
6. “I hain’t got no money.”
7. “You can’t pray a lie.”
8. “It’s the way I’ve been raised.”
9. “It don’t make no difference how foolish it is, it’s the right way–and it’s the regular way.”
10. “Ain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain’t that a big enough majority in any town?”
11. “I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing.”
12. “All right, then, I’ll go to hell.”
13. “I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it.”
14. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, dad; you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
15. “I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: ‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’-and tore it up.”
16. “It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.”
17. “If you find honey, you can’t find any sourer-tasting thing than an old empty hive.”
18. “What’s the use you learning to do right, when it’s troublesome to do right and ain’t no trouble to do wrong?”
19. “It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: ‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’–and tore it up.”
20. “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”
21. “I’ll take the canoe and go see, Jim. It mightn’t be, you know.”
22. “She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn’t think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.”
23. “I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he’d say what he did
24. “Ain’t no harm to borrow from a gang of blacksmiths.”
25. “It’s lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made, or only just happened.”
26. “Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.”
27. “You can’t reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.”
28. “You can’t pray a lie. I found that out.”
29. “I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he’d say what he did. So it was all right now, and I told Tom I was a-going for a doctor. He raised considerable row about it, but me and Jim stuck to it and wouldn’t budge; so he was for crawling out and setting the raft loose himself; but we wouldn’t let him.”
30. “It’s funny how people think of heaven as a reward and hell as a punishment.”
31. “It’s lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.”
32. “It warn’t no time to be sentimentering.”
33. “It ain’t no matter how foolish it is, it’s the right way. And it’s the regular way. And there ain’t no other way, that ever I heard of, and I’ve read all the books that gives any information about these things.”
34. “That’s just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don’t want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide it, it ain’t no disgrace.”
35. “It ain’t no use to try to learn it, because it don’t make no sense.”
36. “Well, I’d been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth–and it does take it off, too, and generally the enamel along with it–but I stayed about one night longer than I ought to, and was just in the act of sliding out when I ran across you on the trail this side of town, and you told me they were coming, and begged me to help you to get off. So I told you I was expecting trouble myself, and would scatter out with you.”
37. “It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it.”
38. “Tom told me what his plan was, and I see in a minute it was worth fifteen of mine for style, and would make Jim just as free a man as mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides. So I was satisfied, and said we would waltz in on it.”
39. “I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once, there warn’t no getting it out again.”
40. “I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he’d say what he did.”
41. “In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.”
42. “It’s lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they
43. “It’s the way I’ve been raised. You take a cat and put him in a cage, and you feed him and give him water, and he’s got nothing to do but just sit there and growl. He’ll forget there ever was such a thing as freedom. But put him in a room that’s got a door, and you can open the door and he’ll never leave.”
44. “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”
45. “The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that’s what an army is–a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.”
46. “If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain’t sleepy–if you are anywheres where it won’t do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places.”
47. “I have a prejudice against people who print things.”
48. “It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.”
49. “It ain’t the money I mind. It’s the time.”
50. “Well, I don’t know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I can’t do. I hire him to tell how to do what I want to do.”
51. “We said there warn’t no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.”
52. “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger, but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn’t do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn’t done that one if I’d ‘a’ knowed it would make him feel that way.”
