character

Tom Sawyer Quotes

76 of the best book quotes from Tom Sawyer
01
“Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain’t got no business doing wrong when he ain’t ignorant and knows better.”
02
“I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing.”
03
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.
04
“Oh come, now, you don’t mean to let on that you like it?” The brush continued to move. “Like it? Well I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?” That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth—stepped back to note the effect—added a touch here and there—criticized the effect again—Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said: “Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.”
05
“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.”
06
“Say, Becky, was you ever engaged?” “What’s that?” “Why, engaged to be married.” “No.” “Would you like to?” “I reckon so. I don’t know. What is it like?” “Like? Why it ain’t like anything. You only just tell a boy you won’t ever have anybody but him, ever ever ever, and then you kiss and that’s all. Anybody can do it.”
07
“But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained shape long at a time. Tom presently began to drift insensibly back into the concerns of his life again. What if he turned his back, now, and disappeared mysteriously? . . . [H]e would join the Indians . . . He would be a pirate! That was it! Now his future lay plain before him, and glowing with unimaginable splendor.”
08
“Now we’ll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer’s gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood.”
09
“There was no getting around the stubborn fact that taking sweetmeats was only “hooking,” while taking bacon and hams and such valuables was plain simple stealing — and there was a command against that in the Bible. So they inwardly resolved that so long as they remained in the business, their piracies should not again be sullied with the crime of stealing.”
10
“I could forgive the boy, now, if he’d committed a million sins!”
11
“Well, everybody does it that way, Huck.” “Tom, I am not everybody.”
12
“Here was a gorgeous triumph; they were missed; they were mourned; hearts were breaking on their account; tears were being shed; accusing memories of unkindnesses to these poor lost lads were rising up, and unavailing regrets and remorse were being indulged: and best of all, the departed were the talk of the whole town, and the envy of all the boys, as far as this dazzling notoriety was concerned. This was fine. It was worth being a pirate, after all.”
13
“Ah, if he could only die temporarily!”
14
“All I could think of was that the teachers must’ve found the illegal stash of candy I’d been selling out of my dorms room. Or maybe they’d realized I got my Essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.”
15
“Like Tom Sawyer, but set in the Northern Territory. I throughly enjoyed this slice of life tale of Tomias, Dale and the others in their community. ”
16
“If he hadn’t run out of whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.”
Source: Chapter 2, Paragraph 48
17
“Aunt Polly placed small trust in such evidence. She went out to see for herself; and she would have been content to find twenty per cent. of Tom’s statement true. When she found the entire fence white-ashed, and not only whitewashed but elaborately coated and recoated, and even a streak added to the ground, her astonishment was almost unspeakable.”
Source: Chapter 3, Paragraph 8
18
“Well, I never! There’s no getting round it, you can work when you’re a mind to, Tom.”
Source: Chapter 3, Paragraph 9
19
“He said to himself that he would not speak a word, even when his aunt came in, but would sit perfectly still till she asked who did the mischief; and then he would tell, and there would be nothing so good in the world as to see that pet model “catch it.”
Source: Chapter 3, Paragraph 20
20
And thus _she_ would see him when she looked out upon the glad morning, and oh! would she drop one little tear upon his poor, lifeless form, would she heave one little sigh to see a bright young life so rudely blighted, so untimely cut down?
Source: Chapter 3, Paragraph 26
21
And you never can be sorry for the trouble you took to learn them; for knowledge is worth more than anything there is in the world; it’s what makes great men and good men; you’ll be a great man and a good man yourself, some day, Thomas...”
Source: Chapter 4, Paragraph 54
22
“But now he did not know the necessary symptoms. However, it seemed well worth while to chance it, so he fell to groaning with considerable spirit.”
Source: Chapter 6, Paragraph 4
23
“Oh, you don’t, don’t you? So all this row was because you thought you’d get to stay home from school and go a-fishing? Tom, Tom, I love you so, and you seem to try every way you can to break my old heart with your outrageousness.”
Source: Chapter 6, Paragraph 42
24
Tom was about to take refuge in a lie, when he saw two long tails of yellow hair hanging down a back that he recognized by the electric sympathy of love; and by that form was the only vacant place on the girls’ side of the school-house. He instantly said:
Source: Chapter 6, Paragraph 121
25
″‘It’s easy,’ whispered Tom, ‘I’ll learn you.‘”
Source: Chapter 6, Paragraph 139
26
″‘Becky Thatcher. What’s yours? Oh, I know. It’s Thomas Sawyer.’ ‘That’s the name they lick me by. I’m Tom when I’m good. You call me Tom, will you?‘”
Source: Chapter 6, Paragraph 144
27
“Church ain’t shucks to a circus.”
Source: Chapter 7, Paragraph 31
28
“Like? Why it ain’t like anything. You only just tell a boy you won’t ever have anybody but him, ever ever ever, and then you kiss and that’s all. Anybody can do it.”
Source: Chapter 7, Paragraph 39
29
“Now it’s all done, Becky. And always after this, you know, you ain’t ever to love anybody but me, and you ain’t ever to marry anybody but me, ever never and forever. Will you?”
Source: Chapter 7, Paragraph 61
30
“No, I’ll never love anybody but you, Tom, and I’ll never marry anybody but you—and you ain’t to ever marry anybody but me, either.”
Source: Chapter 7, Paragraph 62
31
“She would be sorry some day—maybe when it was too late. Ah, if he could only die _temporarily_!”
Source: Chapter 8, Paragraph 3
32
“What if he turned his back, now, and disappeared mysteriously? What if he went away—ever so far away, into unknown countries beyond the seas—and never came back any more! How would she feel then!”
Source: Chapter 8, Paragraph 4
33
″‘Hucky, do you believe the dead people like it for us to be here?’ ‘I wisht I knowed. It’s awful solemn like, _ain’t_ it?‘”
Source: Chapter 9, Paragraph 7
34
“And the two clung together with beating hearts.”
Source: Chapter 9, Paragraph 20
35
“Tom, we got to keep mum. You know that. That Injun devil wouldn’t make any more of drownding us than a couple of cats, if we was to squeak ‘bout this and they didn’t hang him. Now, look-a-here, Tom, less take and swear to one another—that’s what we got to do—swear to keep mum.”
Source: Chapter 10, Paragraph 24
36
“Oh no, that wouldn’t do for this. That’s good enough for little rubbishy common things—specially with gals, cuz _they_ go back on you anyway, and blab if they get in a huff—but there orter be writing ‘bout a big thing like this. And blood.”
Source: Chapter 10, Paragraph 26
37
“Dad fetch it! This comes of playing hookey and doing everything a feller’s told not to do. I might a been good, like Sid, if I’d a tried—but no, I wouldn’t, of course. But if ever I get off this time, I lay I’ll just waller in Sunday-schools!”
Source: Chapter 10, Paragraph 56
38
The spirit of adventure rose in the boys’ souls once more.
Source: Chapter 10, Paragraph 68
39
Then Huckleberry and Tom stood dumb and staring, and heard the stony-hearted liar reel off his serene statement, they expecting every moment that the clear sky would deliver God’s lightnings upon his head, and wondering to see how long the stroke was delayed.
Source: Chapter 11, Paragraph 21
40
And when he had finished and still stood alive and whole, their wavering impulse to break their oath and save the poor betrayed prisoner’s life faded and vanished away, for plainly this miscreant had sold himself to Satan and it would be fatal to meddle with the property of such a power as that.
Source: Chapter 11, Paragraph 21
41
He never knew that Sid lay nightly watching, and frequently slipped the bandage free and then leaned on his elbow listening a good while at a time, and afterward slipped the bandage back to its place again.
Source: Chapter 11, Paragraph 36
42
“Now you’ve asked for it, and I’ll give it to you, because there ain’t anything mean about me; but if you find you don’t like it, you mustn’t blame anybody but your own self.”
Source: Chapter 12, Paragraph 13
43
“Deed I don’t know, Aunt Polly; cats always act so when they’re having a good time.”
Source: Chapter 12, Paragraph 18
44
“I know you was meaning for the best, aunty, and so was I with Peter. It done _him_ good, too. I never see him get around so since—”
Source: Chapter 12, Paragraph 31
45
″‘Tom Sawyer, the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main. Name your names.’ ‘Huck Finn the Red-Handed, and Joe Harper the Terror of the Seas.‘”
Source: Chapter 13, Paragraph 12
46
“Oh, they have just a bully time—take ships and burn them, and get the money and bury it in awful places in their island where there’s ghosts and things to watch it, and kill everybody in the ships—make ‘em walk a plank.”
Source: Chapter 13, Paragraph 55
47
“Boys, I know who’s drownded—it’s us!”
Source: Chapter 14, Paragraph 27
48
“Oh, Mrs. Harper, I don’t know how to give him up! I don’t know how to give him up! He was such a comfort to me, although he tormented my old heart out of me, ‘most.”
Source: Chapter 15, Paragraph 12
49
“Tom was snuffling, now, himself—and more in pity of himself than anybody else.”
Source: Chapter 15, Paragraph 15
50
“He could hear Mary crying, and putting in a kindly word for him from time to time. He began to have a nobler opinion of himself than ever before.”
Source: Chapter 15, Paragraph 15
51
“Still, he was sufficiently touched by his aunt’s grief to long to rush out from under the bed and overwhelm her with joy—and the theatrical gorgeousness of the thing appealed strongly to his nature, too, but he resisted and lay still.”
Source: Chapter 15, Paragraph 15
52
“Well, we’ll let the crybaby go home to his mother, won’t we, Huck? Poor thing—does it want to see its mother? And so it shall. You like it here, don’t you, Huck? We’ll stay, won’t we?”
Source: Chapter 16, Paragraph 17
53
“Why, many a time I’ve looked at people smoking, and thought well I wish I could do that; but I never thought I could,” said Tom.
Source: Chapter 16, Paragraph 36
54
“Well, I don’t say it wasn’t a fine joke, Tom, to keep everybody suffering ‘most a week so you boys had a good time, but it is a pity you could be so hard-hearted as to let me suffer so. If you could come over on a log to go to your funeral, you could have come over and give me a hint some way that you warn’t dead, but only run off.”
Source: Chapter 18, Paragraph 5
55
“It would have been something if you’d cared enough to think of it, even if you didn’t do it.”
Source: Chapter 18, Paragraph 9
56
“Oh, child, you never think. You never think of anything but your own selfishness. You could think to come all the way over here from Jackson’s Island in the night to laugh at our troubles, and you could think to fool me with a lie about a dream; but you couldn’t ever think to pity us and save us from sorrow.”
Source: Chapter 19, Paragraph 9
57
″‘What did you kiss me for, Tom?’ ‘Because I loved you so, and you laid there moaning and I was so sorry.‘”
Source: Chapter 19, Paragraph 27
58
“I acted mighty mean today, Becky, and I’m so sorry. I won’t ever, ever do that way again, as long as ever I live—please make up, won’t you?”
Source: Chapter 20, Paragraph 4
59
“What a curious kind of a fool a girl is! Never been licked in school! Shucks! What’s a licking! That’s just like a girl—they’re so thin-skinned and chicken-hearted.”
Source: Chapter 20, Paragraph 16
60
“Tom stood a moment, to gather his dismembered faculties; and when he stepped forward to go to his punishment the surprise, the gratitude, the adoration that shone upon him out of poor Becky’s eyes seemed pay enough for a hundred floggings.”
Source: Chapter 20, Paragraph 33
61
There were some boys-and-girls’ parties, but they were so few and so delightful that they only made the aching voids between ache the harder.
Source: Chapter 22, Paragraph 11
62
“You’ve been mighty good to me, boys—better’n anybody else in this town. And I don’t forget it, I don’t. Often I says to myself, says I, ‘I used to mend all the boys’ kites and things, and show ‘em where the good fishin’ places was, and befriend ‘em what I could, and now they’ve all forgot old Muff when he’s in trouble; but Tom don’t, and Huck don’t—_they_ don’t forget him,’ says I, ‘and I don’t forget them.‘”
Source: Chapter 23, Paragraph 31
63
“Daily Muff Potter’s gratitude made Tom glad he had spoken; but nightly he wished he had sealed up his tongue.”
Source: Chapter 24, Paragraph 6
64
“Yes: but look here; it may be a good while before I get the right chance at that job; accidents might happen; ‘tain’t in such a very good place; we’ll just regularly bury it—and bury it deep.”
Source: Chapter 26, Paragraph 62
65
“But shucks! Your mother won’t know, and so what’s the harm? All she wants is that you’ll be safe; and I bet you she’d ‘a’ said go there if she’d ‘a’ thought of it. I know she would!”
Source: Chapter 29, Paragraph 17
66
“Tom, Tom, we’re lost! we’re lost! We never can get out of this awful place! Oh, why did we ever leave the others!”
Source: Chapter 31, Paragraph 24
67
“Becky’ s frail limbs refused to carry her farther. She sat down. Tom rested with her, and they talked of home, and the friends there, and the comfortable beds and, above all, the light! Becky cried, and Tom tried to think of some way of comforting her, but all his encouragements were grown thread-bare with use, and sounded like sarcasms.”
Source: Chapter 31, Paragraph 29
68
“He tried to get Becky to talk, but her sorrows were too oppressive, all her hopes were gone.”
Source: Chapter 31, Paragraph 59
69
″‘Earnest, Huck—just as earnest as ever I was in my life. Will you go in there with me and help get it out?’ ‘I bet I will! I will if it’s where we can blaze our way to it and not get lost’.”
Source: Chapter 33, Paragraph 26
70
“Money. You make them raise all they can, off’n their friends; and after you’ve kept them a year, if it ain’t raised then you kill them. That’s the general way. Only you don’t kill the women. You shut up the women, but you don’t kill them. They’re always beautiful and rich, and awfully scared. You take their watches and things, but you always take your hat off and talk polite. They ain’t anybody as polite as robbers—you’ll see that in any book. Well, the women get to loving you, and after they’ve been in the cave a week or two weeks they stop crying and after that you couldn’t get them to leave. If you drove them out they’d turn right around and come back. It’s so in all the books.”
Source: Chapter 33, Paragraph 47
71
″‘Why, it’s real bully, Tom. I believe it’s better’n to be a pirate.’ ‘Yes, it’s better in some ways, because it’s close to home and circuses and all that.‘”
Source: Chapter 33, Paragraph 49
72
“Sid, there’s only one person in this town mean enough to do that, and that’s you. If you had been in Huck’s place you’d ‘a’ sneaked down the hill and never told anybody on the robbers. You can’t do any but mean things, and you can’t bear to see anybody praised for doing good ones. There—no thanks, as the widow says”
Source: Chapter 34, Paragraph 18
73
“Huck’s got money. Maybe you don’t believe it, but he’s got lots of it. Oh, you needn’t smile—I reckon I can show you. You just wait a minute.”
Source: Chapter 34, Paragraph 24
74
″‘Oh, Huck, you know I can’t do that. ‘Tain’t fair; and besides if you’ll try this thing just a while longer you’ll come to like it.’ ‘Like it! Yes—the way I’d like a hot stove if I was to set on it long enough.‘”
Source: Chapter 35, Paragraph 13
75
“Yes, but that’s different. A robber is more high-toned than what a pirate is— as a general thing. In most countries they’re awful high up in the nobility—dukes and such.”
Source: Chapter 35, Paragraph 20
76
“It’s to swear to stand by one another, and never tell the gang’s secrets, even if you’re chopped all to flinders, and kill anybody and all his family that hurts one of the gang.”
Source: Chapter 35, Paragraph 31

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