Feeling Twainish

I finished (re)reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn last night, so I thought I'd share a few choice quotes before putting it back on the shelf. [The emboldening is mine, the italics are Twain's.]


" 'You've put on considerable many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg before I get done with you. You're educated, too, they say; can read and write. You think you're better'n your father, now, don't you, because he can't? I'll take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such hifalut'n foolishness, hey? --who told you you could?

'...looky here -- you drop that school, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be better'n what he is. You lemme catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother couldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she died. None of the family couldn't, before they died. I can't; and here you're a-swelling yourself up like this. I ain't the man to stand it--you hear? Say--lemme hear you read.' "

***
"'Is a cat a man, Huck?'
'No.'
'Well, den dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a man. Is a cow a man? --er is a cow a cat?'
'No, she ain't either of them.'
'Well, den, she ain' got no business to talk like either one er the yuther of 'em. Is a Frenchman a man?'
'Yes.'
'Well, den! Dad blame it, why doan' he talk like a man? You answer me dat!' "
***

"I ain't opposed to spending money on circuses, when there ain't no other way, but there ain't no use in wasting it on them."