The difference between the almost -right word& the right word is really a large matter—it’sthe difference between the lightning-bug & thelightning.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held itin my hand. I was trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right, then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up.

We said there warn’t no home like a raft, afterall. Other places do seem so cramped up andsmothery, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.

You don’t know about me, without you haveread a book by the name of “The Adventuresof Tom Sawyer,” but that ain’t no matter. Thatbook was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he toldthe truth, mainly.

I thought a minute, and says to myself, holdon,—s’pose you’d a done right and give Jim up; would you felt better than what you do now?No, says I, I’d feel bad—I’d feel just the sameway I do now. Well, then, says I, what’s the use you learning to do right, when it’s troublesome to do right and ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; personsattempting to find a moral in it will bebanished; persons attempting to find a plot in itwill be shot.

All the modern inconveniences.

We have not the reverent feeling for therainbow that a savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter.

What chance has the ignorant, uncultivated liar against the educated expert? What chance have I . . . against a lawyer?

In the matter of intellect the ant must bea strangely overrated bird. During manysummers, now, I have watched him, whenI ought to have been in better business, andI have not yet come across a living ant thatseemed to have any more sense than a deadone. I refer to the ordinary ant, of course; I have had no experience of those wonderfulSwiss and African ones which vote, keep drilled armies, hold slaves, and dispute about religion.