The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
Huckleberry Finn was a poor boy until he and Tom Sawyer found a stash of gold.
Huckleberry Finn gets adopted by the Widow Douglas.
He has difficulty with her attempts to refine him, but Tom Sawyer encourages him to stay “respectable.”
He gets used to his new life, but his drunken bum for a father returns and demands his money.
Huckleberry Finn Quotes With Page Numbers
“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.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 1, Page 1
“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”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 1, Page 3
“There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 1, Page 3
“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. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly—Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is—and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.”
~Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 1, Page 3
“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, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 1, Page 3
“so then I didn’t care no more about him, because I don’t take no stock in dead people.”
~Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 1, Page 3
“That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 1, Page 4
“Then she told me all about the bad place, and said I wished I was there. She got mad, then, but I didn’t mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres, all I wanted was a change, I warn’t particular”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 1, Page 4
“I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die;”
~Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 1, Page 5
“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.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 2, Page 7
“Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn’t let on.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 2, Page 11
“I had been to school most all the time, and could spell, and read, and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I don’t reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live forever. I don’t take no stock in mathematics, anyway.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter4 , Page 17
“Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you’s gwyne to git well agin.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 4, Page 20
“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.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 4, Page 27
“He had been drunk over in town, and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at. A body would a thought he was Adam, he was just all mud.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 4, Page 28
“I reckon the widow or the parson or somebody prayed that this bread would find me, and here it have gone and done it. So there ain’t no doubt but there is something in that thing. That is, there’s something in it when a body like the widow or the parson prays, but it don’t work for me, and I reckon it don’t work for only just the right kind.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 8, Page 39
“Jim said bees wouldn’t sting idiots, but I didn’t believe that, because I tried them lots of times myself and they wouldn’t sting me.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 8, Page 46
“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, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 8, Page 47
“Stars and shadows ain’t good to see by.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 11, Page 62
“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, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 12, Page 64
“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?”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 16, Page 89
“if you’re telling the truth you needn’t be afraid—nobody’ll hurt you.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 17, Page 93
“He was sunshine most always-I mean he made it seem like good weather.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 18, Page 103
“A feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that other man’s brother kills him; then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the cousins chip in — and by and by everybody’s killed off, and there ain’t no more feud. But it’s kind of slow, and takes a long time.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 18, Page 105
“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, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 18, Page 106
“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- Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make so many.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 19, Page 115
“I deserve it all. Let the cold world do its worst; one thing I know–there’s a grave somewhere for me. The world may go on just as its always done, and take everything from me–loved ones, property, everything–but it can’t take that. Some day I’ll lie down in it and forget it all, and my poor broken heart will be at rest.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 19, Page 117
“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, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 19, Page 120
“To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin
That makes calamity of so long life;”~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 21, Page 130
“The average man don’t like trouble and danger.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 22, Page 139
“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, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 22, Page 139
“All kings is mostly rapscallions, as fur as I can make out.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 23, Page 145
“My, you ought to seen old Henry the Eight when he was in bloom. He was a blossom. He used to marry a new wife every day, and chop off her head next morning. And he would do it just as indifferent as if he was ordering up eggs. ‘Fetch up Nell Gwynn,’ he says. They fetch her up. Next morning, ‘Chop off her head!’ And they chop it off. ‘Fetch up Jane Shore,’ he says; and up she comes, Next morning, ‘Chop off her head’—and they chop it off. ‘Ring up Fair Rosamun.’ Fair Rosamun answers the bell. Next morning, ‘Chop off her head.’ And he made every one of them tell him a tale every night; and he kept that up till he had hogged a thousand and one tales that way, and then he put them all in a book, and called it Domesday Book—which was a good name and stated the case. You don’t know kings, Jim, but I know them; and this old rip of ourn is one of the cleanest I’ve struck in history. Well, Henry he takes a notion he wants to get up some trouble with this country. How does he go at it—give notice?—give the country a show? No. All of a sudden he heaves all the tea in Boston Harbor overboard, and whacks out a declaration of independence, and dares them to come on. That was his style—he never give anybody a chance. He had suspicions of his father, the Duke of Wellington. Well, what did he do? Ask him to show up? No—drownded him in a butt of mamsey, like a cat. S’pose people left money laying around where he was—what did he do? He collared it. S’pose he contracted to do a thing, and you paid him, and didn’t set down there and see that he done it—what did he do? He always done the other thing. S’pose he opened his mouth—what then? If he didn’t shut it up powerful quick he’d lose a lie every time. That’s the kind of a bug Henry was; and if we’d a had him along ‘stead of our kings he’d a fooled that town a heap worse than ourn done. I don’t say that ourn is lambs, because they ain’t, when you come right down to the cold facts; but they ain’t nothing to that old ram, anyway. 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.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 23, Page 145
“Mary Jane she set at the head of the table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the biscuits was, and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough the fried chickens was—and all that kind of rot, the way women always do for to force out compliments; and the people all knowed everything was tiptop, and said so—said ‘How do you get biscuits to brown so nice?’ and ‘Where, for the land’s sake, did you get these amaz’n pickles?’ and all that kind of humbug talky-talk, just the way people always does at a supper, you know.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 26, Pages 162, 163
“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, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 26, Page 168
“I don’t want no better book than what your face is.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 28, Page 180
“it’s the little things that smoothes people’s roads the most”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 28, Page 181
“I couldn’t bear to think about it; and yet, somehow, I couldn’t think about nothing else.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 29, Page 192
“You can’t pray a lie — I found that out.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 31, Page 202
“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.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 31, Page 202
“It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I couldn’t try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn’t come. Why wouldn’t they? It warn’t no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from ME, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn’t come. It was because my heart warn’t right; it was because I warn’t square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting ON to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth SAY I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that n*****’s owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can’t pray a lie–I found that out.
So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn’t know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I’ll go and write the letter–and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:
Miss Watson, your runaway n***** Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.
HUCK FINN.
I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking–thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, ‘stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the ONLY one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.
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.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 31, Pages 202, 203
“All right, then, I’ll go to hell.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 31, Page 203
“Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 33, Page 219
“It was a dreadful thing to see. Humans beings can be awful cruel to one another.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 33, Page 219
“It don’t make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience ain’t got no sense, and just goes for him anyway.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 33, Page 220
“Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain’t got no business doing wrong when he ain’t ignorant and knows better.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 36, Page 235
“Jim he couldn’t see no sense in the most of it, but he allowed we was white folks and knowed better than him;”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 36, Page 237
“When a prisoner of style escapes, it’s called an evasion.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 39, Page 255
“I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 39, Page 256
“He had a dream… and it shot him.”
~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 40, Page 263
What does Huck say his name is in Chapter 17?
In Chapter 17, Huck tells the Grangerfords his name is George Jackson. The Grangerfords, not recognizing him as the runaway Huck Finn, accept his false identity and invite him to stay on their property.