'The Adventure of Tom Sawyer' Quotes

Study Guide

• 'The Adventure of Tom Sawyer' Review
• Complete Text
• Quotes
• Questions for Study & Discussion
• Mark Twain - Profile

The Adventure of Tom Sawyer is a novel by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens). The book is a Bildungsroman, following the development of a young boy, as he experiences one adventure after another. Mark Twain's work is told in the third person, looking back with a sense of nostalgia. Here are a few quotes from The Adventure of Tom Sawyer.

• "I ain't doing my duty by that boy, and that's the Lord's truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spile the child, as the Good Book says. I'm a-laying up sin and suffering for us both, I know. He's full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he's my own dead sister's boy, poor thing, and I ain't got the heart to lash him, somehow. Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks."
  - Mark Twain, The Adventure of Tom Sawyer
  
  
• "Tom was a glittering hero once more-the pet of the old, the envy of the young. His name even went into immortal print, for the village paper magnified him. There were some that believed he would be President, yet, if he escaped hanging."
  - Mark Twain, The Adventure of Tom Sawyer
  
  
• "Huck Finn's wealth and the fact that he was now under the Widow Douglas's protection introduced him into society-no, dragged him into it, hurled him into it-and his sufferings were almost more than he could bear. The widow's servants kept him clean and neat, combed and brushed... He had to eat with knife and fork; he had to use napkin, cup, and plate; he had to learn his book, he had to go to church; he had to talk so properly that speech was become insipid in his mouth; whithersoever he turned, the bars and shackles of civilization shut him in and bound him hand and foot."
  - Mark Twain, The Adventure of Tom Sawyer