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.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Author's Notice. |
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.
That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth,
mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told
the truth.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Opening lines of the book, Chapter 1. |
After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses
and the Bulrushers and I was in a sweat to find out all about
him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a
considerable long time; so then I didn't care no more about
him, because I don't take no stock in dead people.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck, referring to the Widow Douglas, Chapter
1. |
She was going to live so as to go to the good place.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
About Miss Watson, Chapter 1. |
Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up
on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Jim is Miss Watson's slave, Chapter 2. |
Who told you you might meddle with such hifalut'n foolishness,
hey?
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck's Pap rejects his son's educational
pursuits, Chapter 5. |
Then the old man got to cussing and cussed everything and
everybody he could think of, and then cussed them all over again
to make sure he hadn't skipped any, and after that he polished
off with a kind of a general cuss all round, including a considerable
parcel of people which he didn't know the names of, and so called
them what's-his-name when he got to them, and went right along
with his cussing.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
About Huck's cruel drunkard father Pap
Finn, Chapter 6. |
We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then
to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down
the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the
stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it warn't
often that we laughedonly a little kind of a low chuckle.
We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever
happened to us at allthat night, nor the next, nor the
next.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck and Jim, Chapter 12. |
Mornings, before daylight, I slipped into corn fields and
borrowed a watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some
new corn, or things of that kind. Pap always said it warn't
no harm to borrow things, if you was meaning to pay them back,
sometime; but the widow said it warn't anything but a soft name
for stealing, and no decent body would do it.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck borrows food, Chapter 12. |
What's the use you learning to do right, when it's troublesome
to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages
is just the same?
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Chapter 16. |
There warn't anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or
two, for there warn't any lock on the door, and hogs likes a
puncheon floor in summer-time because it's cool. If you notice,
most folks don't go to church only when they've got to; but
a hog is different.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Chapter 18. |
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.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck and Jim, Chapter 18. |
These liars warn't no kings nor dukes, at all, but just low-down
humbugs and frauds.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck referring to the King and Duke, Chapter
19. |
If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the
best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them
have their own way.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck on his dad, Chapter 19. |
To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin,
That makes calamity of so long life.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Duke's version of Hamlet's soliloquy,
Chapter 21. |
Your newspapers call you a brave people so much that you think
you are braver than any other people - whereas you're just as
brave, and no braver. Why don't your juries hang murderers?
Because they're afraid the man's friends will shoot them in
the back, in the dark -- and it's just what they WOULD do.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Sherburn to mob who come to his house,
making like they were doing to lynch him, Chapter 22. |
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. But a mob without any MAN at the head of it is BENEATH
pitifulness.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Sherburn to the mob, Chapter 22. |
The Royal Nonesuch.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Title of show by Duke and King, Chapters
22, 23. |
All kings is mostly rapscallions.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck to Jim, Chapter 23. |
All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to make allowances.
Take them all around, they're a mighty ornery lot. It's the
way they're raised.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck to Jim, Chapter 23. |
I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white
folks does for their'n.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck on Jim, Chapter 23. |
Well, if I ever struck anything like it, I'm a nigger. It
was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck says to himself after witnessing the
King and Duke conning the entire town, Chapter 24. |
H'aint we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't
that a big enough majority in any town?
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Chapter 26. |
Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job
that was more nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the
same--she was just that kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus
if she took the notion--there warn't no back-down to her, I
judge.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck on Mary Jane, Chapter 28. |
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."
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Chapter 30. |
I know what you'll say. You'll say it's dirty Low-down business;
but what if it is? - I'm low down; and I'm agoing to steal him,
and I want you to keep mum and not let on. Will you?
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck tells Tom Sawyer of plan to free the
slave Jim, Chapter 33. |
Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for them
poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn't ever feel any
hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful
thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck on seeing the King and Duke tarred
and feathered, Chapter 33. |
I knowed he was white inside.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck on Jim, Chapter 40. |
I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the
rest, because Aunt Sally shes going to adopt me and sivilize
me, and I cant stand it. I been there before.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck's quest for freedom, last lines of
book, Chapter 43. |