Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
11 quotes
"Tom Sawyer the Pirate looked around upon the envying juveniles about him and confessed in his heart that this was the proudest moment of his life."
"Well, everybody does it that way, Huck.""Tom, I am not everybody."
"Diligence and attention soon gave him the knack of it, and he strode down the street with his mouth full of harmony and his soul full of gratitude. He felt much as an astronomer feels who has discovered a new planet—no doubt, as far as strong, deep, unalloyed pleasure is concerned, the advantage was with the boy, not the astronomer."
"Tom's whole being applauded this idea. It was deep, and dark, and awful; the hour, the circumstances, the surroundings, were in keeping with it."
"Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it -- namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain."
"For a little while, hope made a show of reviving-not with any reason to back it, but only because it is its nature to revive when the spring has not been taken out of it by age and familiarity with failure."
"Like it! Yes—the way I'd like a hot stove if I was to set on it long enough. No, Tom, I won't be rich, and I won't live in them cussed smothery houses. I like the woods, and the river, and hogsheads, and I'll stick to 'em, too."
"Looking' his last' upon the scene of his former joys and his later sufferings, and wishing 'she' could see him now, abroad on the wild sea, facing peril and death with a dauntless heart, going to his doom with a grim smile on his lips."
"Maybe not, maybe not. Cheer up, Becky, and let's go on trying."
"But old fools is the biggest fools there is."
"Who knows, he may grow up to be President someday, unless they hang him first!" Aunt Polly about Tom Sawyer"