Tom Sawyer Quotes

“Huck [Finn] and Tom [Sawyer] represent two viable models of the American Character. They exist side by side in every American and every American action. America is, and always has been, undecided about whether it will be the United States of Tom or the United States of Huck. The United States of Tom looks at misery and says: Hey, I didn't do it. It looks at inequity and says: All my life I have busted my butt to get where I am, so don't come crying to me. Tom likes kings, codified nobility, unquestioned privilege. Huck likes people, fair play, spreading the truck around. Whereas Tom knows, Huck wonders. Whereas Huck hopes, Tom presumes. Whereas Huck cares, Tom denies. These two parts of the American Psyche have been at war since the beginning of the nation, and come to think of it, these two parts of the World Psyche have been at war since the beginning of the world, and the hope of the nation and of the world is to embrace the Huck part and send the Tom part back up the river, where it belongs.”
― George Saunders, The Braindead Megaphone

“There on the dune, beside the table, one of the camel boys has his arm around the other, and they sit there like that as they watch the sun. The dunes are turning the same shades of adobe and aqua as the buildings of Marrakech. Two boys, arms around each other. To Less, it seems so foreign. It makes him sad. In his world, he never sees straight men doing this. Just as a gay couple cannot walk hand in hand down the streets of Marrakech, he thinks, two men, best friends, cannot walk hand in hand down the streets of Chicago. They cannot sit on a dune like these teenagers and watch a sunset in each other’s embrace. This Tom Sawyer love for Huck Finn.”
― Andrew Sean Greer, Less

“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.”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

“This ain't no thirty-seven year job, this is a thirty-eight year job, Tom Sawyer.”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“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.”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

“I am drawn to Tom Sawyer Island because a tribute to Mark Twain would not be out of place in a theme park of my own design. Should Vowell World ever get enough investors, I'm going to stick my Tom Sawyer Island in Love and Death in the American Novel Land right between the Jay Gatsby Swimming Pool and Tom Joad's Dust Bowl Lanes, a Depression-themed bowling alley renting artfully worn-out shoes.”
― Sarah Vowell, Take the Cannoli

“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.”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

“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.”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

“As usual, the fickle, unreasoning world took Muff Potter to its bosom and fondled him as lavishly as it had abused him before. But that sort of conduct is to the world's credit; therefore it is not well to find fault with it.”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

“What we got is NOW, Huck, and now is forever. Until it ain't. So, you can't worry over nothing except putting off the end a your story as long as you can, and finishing it with a bang.”
― Robert Coover, Huck Out West

“A Tom Sawyerish figure she imagined growing up on some widwestern farm, reading adventure books and butchering chickens, pulling the braids of milkmaids and leaving his hometown to travel the world; a more devout and sober Hemingway, in search of a deeper meaning, but never losing sight of where he came from.”
― Susie Yang, In These Hallowed Halls: A Dark Academia Anthology

“Would she cry, and wish that she had the right to put her arms around his neck and comfort him?”
― Mark Twain, Adventures of Tom Sawyer

“Así, pues, le dije:
—Ya sabes, Tom, que no sirvo ni para limpiarte los zapatos. Pero no importa: Dios todopoderoso nos ha creado a todos y a unos los ha dejado ciegos mientras que a otros les ha dado los ojos para verlo todo. Me parece que yo no figuro entre estos últimos; pero sin duda está bien así, puesto que es Dios quien lo ha querido.”
― Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, Detective

“-- 'Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer swears they will keep mum about this and they wish they may Drop down dead in their tracks if they ever tell and Rot.'

Huckleberry was filled with admiration of Tom's facility in writing, and the sublimity of his language.”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

“Just at this juncture the boy felt a slow, fateful grip closing on his ear, and a steady lifting impulse. In that vise he was borne across the house and deposited in his own seat, under a peppering fire of giggles from the whole school. Then the master stood over him during a few awful moments, and finally moved away to his throne without saying a word. But although Tom's ear tingled, his heart was jubilant.”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

“As the service proceeded, the clergyman drew such pictures of the graces, the winning ways, and the rare promise of the lost lads that every soul there, thinking he recognized these pictures, felt a pang in remembering that he had persistently blinded himself to them always before, and had as persistently seen only faults and flaws in the poor boys. The minister related many a touching incident in the lives of the departed, too, which illustrated their sweet, generous natures, and the people could easily see, now, how noble and beautiful those episodes were, and remembered with grief that at the time they occurred they had seemed rank rascalities, well deserving of the cowhide. The congregation became more and more moved, as the pathetic tale went on, till at last the whole company broke down and joined the weeping mourners in a chorus of anguished sobs, the preacher himself giving way to his feelings, and crying in the pulpit.”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

“And now at this moment, when hope was dead, Tom Sawyer came forward with nine yellow tickets, nine red tickets, and ten blue ones, and demanded a Bible. This was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. Walters was not expecting an application from this source for the next ten years. But there was no getting around it—here were the certified checks, and they were good for their face. Tom was therefore elevated to a place with the Judge and the other elect, and the great news was announced from headquarters. It was the most stunning surprise of the decade, and so profound was the sensation that it lifted the new hero up to the judicial one’s altitude, and the school had two marvels to gaze upon in place of one. The boys were all eaten up with envy—but those that suffered the bitterest pangs were those who perceived too late that they themselves had contributed to this hated splendor by trading tickets to Tom for the wealth he had amassed in selling whitewashing privileges. These despised themselves, as being the dupes of a wily fraud, a guileful snake in the grass.”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

“During two long weeks Tom lay a prisoner, dead to the world and its happenings. He was very ill, he was interested in nothing. When he got upon his feet at last and moved feebly downtown, a melancholy change had come over everything and every creature. There had been a “revival,” and everybody had “got religion,” not only the adults, but even the boys and girls. Tom went about, hoping against hope for the sight of one blessed sinful face, but disappointment crossed him everywhere. He found Joe Harper studying a Testament, and turned sadly away from the depressing spectacle. He sought Ben Rogers, and found him visiting the poor with a basket of tracts. He hunted up Jim Hollis, who called his attention to the precious blessing of his late measles as a warning. Every boy he encountered added another ton to his depression; and when, in desperation, he flew for refuge at last to the bosom of Huckleberry Finn and was received with a Scriptural quotation, his heart broke and he crept home and to bed realizing that he alone of all the town was lost, forever and forever.”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

“Nenhum outro menino em seu círculo de conhecidos tinha lido o que ele tinha lido e, como tia Mildred escolhia os livros cuidadosamente para ele, assim como havia escolhido para a irmã, em seu período de confinamento, treze anos antes, Ferguson lia os livros que ela mandava com uma avidez que parecia fome física, pois sua tia compreendia quais livros iam dos seis para os oito anos de idade, dos oito para os dez, dos dez para os doze — e daí até o fim do ensino médio. Contos de fadas, para começar os Irmãos Grimm e os livros muito coloridos compilados pelo escocês Lang, depois os fantásticos e assombrosos romances de Lewis Carroll, George MacDonald e Edithh Nesbit, seguidos pelas versões de mitos gregos e romanos escritas por Bulfinch, uma adaptação infantil de Odisseia, A teia de Charlotte, uma adaptação de As mil e uma noites, remontadas com o título de As sete viagens de Simbad, o Marujo, e mais adiante, uma seleção de seiscentas páginas de As mil e uma noites originais, e no ano seguinte O médico e o monstro, contos de horror e mistério de Poe, O príncipe e o mendigo, Raptado, Um conto de Natal, Tom Sawyer e Um estudo em vermelho, e a reação de Ferguson foi tão forte ao livro de Conan Doyle que o presente que ele ganhou da tia Mildred em seu décimo primeiro aniversário foi uma edição imensamente gorda, abundantemente ilustrada, de Histórias Completas de Sherlock Holmes.”
― Paul Auster, 4 3 2 1