The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Quotes

Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn uses regional vernacular and an innocent point of view to tackle important issues like slavery, freedom and an exaggerated, 19th century southern society.

These stories were written by a man that lived through the War between the States also known as the Civil War. The stories were told by a man that knew the culture of the characters that he was writing about so colorfully in his stories. This first hand knowledge gave him a very unique ability to tell these stories.

Mark Twain was born Samuel Clemens on November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri. He grew up next to the Mississippi River and eventually worked on the river as an adult. He carried the knowledge of the river and incorporated it into the backdrop for the tales that he weaves about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. .

Huck Finn is the sequel to the historically telling novel called, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which Twain wrote eight years earlier.

The story starts with Finn, who has a bit of money thanks to the events of the previous novel. He escapes from the house of Widow Douglas, who has been given custody of Huckleberry. By chance, he runs into his alcoholic father and ends up under his custody. His father locks him up in his cabin and in order to escape, Huck fakes his own death and heads down the Mississippi River. While traveling, Huck meets Jim, a slave who had run away from his master, Miss Watson. The two decide to continue on their raft journey down the river together.

• Wikiquote: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  • "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." -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." -Ch. 1

• • "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." -Ch. 18

• • "To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin." -Ch. 21

• BookRags: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Quotes
  • "'Yes-en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns mysef, en I's wuth eight hund'd dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn' want no'.'" -Chapter 8, pg. 52

• • "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." -Chapter 22, pg. 161

• • "I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he'd say what he did say - so it was all right, now, and I told Tom I was agoing for a doctor." -Chapter 40, pg. 301

• LitQuotes: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  • "Music is a good thing; and after all that soul-butter and hogwash I never see it freshen up things so, and sound so honest and bully."

• • "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."

• • "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."

• NovelGuide: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Top Ten Quotes
  • "...she was going to live so as to go to the good place." -Huck, about Miss Watson

• • "It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and no books nor study." -Huck

• • "I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their'n." -Huck, about Jim

• Sparknotes: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Important Quotes Explained
  • "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." -Huck, Chapter XXXIV

• • "But I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before." -Huck, Last Chapter

• literary-quotations.com: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  • "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?"

• • "Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches."

• • "All kings is mostly rapscallions."

• About.com: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Quotes
  • "The average man don't like trouble and danger."

• • "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."