Huckleberry Quotes

• I lived an idyllic 'Huckleberry Finn' life in a tiny town. Climbing trees. Tagging after brothers. Happy. Barefoot on my pony. It was 'To Kill a Mockingbird'-esque.

  Sissy Spacek

  Brother, Climbing, Tree

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• In many ways, being honest about 'Huckleberry Finn' goes right to the heart of whether we can be honest about our heritage and our identity as Americans.

  Jane Smiley

  Heart, Identity, Heritage

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• Why are we reading a Shakespeare play or 'Huckleberry Finn?' Well, because these works are great, but they also tell us something about the times in which they were created. Unfortunately, previous eras and dead authors often used language or accepted as normal sentiments that we now find unacceptable.

  Jane Smiley

  Reading, Play, Eras

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• It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best way; then you don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble. If they wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no objections, 'long as it would keep peace in the family; and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so I didn't tell him. 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.

  Mark Twain

  Kings, Liars, Long

  Mark Twain (2008). “10 Books in 1”, p.110, Shoes & Ships & Sealing Wax

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• All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Book, Usa, Literature

  Green Hills of Africa ch. 1 (1935)

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• I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it.

  Mark Twain

  Two, Forever, Literature

  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ch. 31 (1884)

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• If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

  Mark Twain

  Life, Cheating, Funny Inspirational

  Mark Twain (2010). “Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review”, p.43, Univ of Wisconsin Press

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• What's the use you learning to do right , when it's troublesome to do right and it ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?

  Mark Twain

  Use, Wages, Trouble

  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ch. 16 (1884)

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• To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so long life.

  Mark Twain

  Long, Hamlet And Ophelia, Speech

  1884 The Duke's version of Hamlet's soliloquy, combining elements of other speeches by Hamlet and pieces of Macbeth. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, ch.21.

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• 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 laughed, only a kind of low chuckle. We had mighty good weather, as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all, that night, nor the next, nor the next.

  Mark Twain

  Stars, Night, Drifting Off

  Mark Twain (2010). “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: The Only Authoritative Text Based on the Complete, Original Manuscript”, p.78, Univ of California Press

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• You can't pray a lie -- I found that out.

  Mark Twain

  Lying, Praying, Found

  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ch. 31 (1884)

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• 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.

  Mark Twain

  Summer, Doors, Two

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn: The Original Text Edition”, p.352, NewSouth Books

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• Yes - en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns myself, en I's wuth eight hund'd dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn' want no mo'.

  Mark Twain

  Eight, Want, Dollars

  1884 Jim.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, ch.8.

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• And so when I couldn't stand it no longer, I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied.

  Mark Twain

  Cute, Rags, Sugar

  Mark Twain (2010). “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, p.7, Collector's Library

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• There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.

  Mark Twain

  Teaching, Assessment, Personality

  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) ch. 1

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• Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.

  Mark Twain

  Awful, Humans, Human Beings

  Mark Twain (1992). “Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn”, p.8, Wordsworth Editions

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• But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of therest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before.

  Mark Twain

  Aunt, Light, Territory

  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ch. 43 (1884)

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• Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big enough majority in any town?

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Humor, Science

  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ch. 26 (1884)

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• Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, water bugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb. Brooks to wade, water lilies, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hayfields, pine-cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, huckleberries and hornets; and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of education.

  Luther Burbank

  Children, Butterfly, Animal

  Luther Burbank (2000). “The Training of the Human Plant”, p.91, The Minerva Group, Inc.

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• 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.

  Mark Twain

  Stars, Sky, Lovely

  Mark Twain, Barry Moser (1985). “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, p.180, Univ of California Press

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• 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 a Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.

  Mark Twain

  Book, Adventure, Names

  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ch. 1 (1884)

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• You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.

  Mark Twain

  Rafting, Easy, Transport

  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ch. 18 (1884)

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• 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.

  Mark Twain

  Fighting, Army, Men

  Mark Twain (2015). “Annotated Huckleberry Finn with English Grammar Exercises: by Mark Twain (Author), Robert Powell (Editor)”, p.160, Powell Publications, LLC

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• By reading Huckleberry Finn I felt I was able to justify my act of going into the mountain forest at night and sleeping among the trees with a sense of security which I could never find indoors.

  Kenzaburo Oe

  Reading, Sleep, Night

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• It's so wrong when I pick up a new edition of Huckleberry Finn and I look at the last page and it doesn't say, Yours truly, at the end.

  Leslie Fiedler

  Looks, Pages, Lasts

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