“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 (opening page)

“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.” 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.” 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.” Chapter 2

“‘Ransomed? What’s that?’ ‘I don’t know. But that’s what they do. I’ve seen it in books; and so of course that’s what we’ve got to do.’ ‘But how can we do it if we don’t know what it is?’ ‘Why blame it all, we’ve got to do it. Don’t I tell you it’s in the books? Do you want to go to doing different from what’s in the books, and get things all muddled up?'” Chapter 2

“‘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

“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 little kind of a 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.” 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.” Chapter 12

“‘Quick, Jim, it ain’t no time for fooling around and moaning; there’s a gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don’t hunt up their boat and set her drifting down the river so these fellows can’t get away from the wreck, there’s one of ’em going to be in a bad fix. But if we find their boat we can put all of ’em in a bad fix – for the Sheriff ‘ll get ’em.'” Chapter 12

“Conscience says to me ‘What had poor Miss Watson done to you, that you could see her nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one single word? What did that poor old woman do to you, that you could treat her so mean?…’ I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished I was dead.” Chapter 16

“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?” Chapter 16

“It made me so sick I most fell out of the tree. I ain’t agoing to tell all that happened – it would make me sick again if I was to do that. I wished I hadn’t ever come ashore that night, to see such things . . .” Chapter 18

“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.” Chapter 18

“To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin,That makes calamity of so long life.” 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.” Chapter 22

“I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their’n.” Chapter 23

“H’aint we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain’t that a big enough majority in any town?” Chapter 26

“‘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?'” 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.” Chapter 33

“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

“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.” Chapter 43