words to inspire before you expire
“‘Pooty soon I’ll be a-shout’n for joy, en I’ll say, it’s all on accounts o’ Huck; I’s a free man, en I couldn’t ever ben free ef it hadn’ ben for Huck; Huck done it. Jim won’t ever forgit you, Huck; you’s de bes’ fren’ Jim’s ever had; en you’s de only fren’ ole Jim’s got now.'”
—from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
“So he dozed off, pretty soon. By-and-by I got the old split bottom chair and clumb up, as easy as I could, not to make any noise, and got down the gun. I slipped the ramrod down it to make sure it was loaded, and then I laid it across the turnip barrel, pointing towards pap, and set down behind it to wait for him to stir. And how slow and still the time did drag along.”
—from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
“You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.”
—from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
—from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
“‘I discovered at an early age that I was—shall we be kind and say different? It’s a better, more general word than the other one. I indulged in certain practices that our society regards as shameful. And I got sick. It wasn’t the practices, I don’t think, it was the feeling that the great, deadly, pointing forefinger of society was pointing at me—and the great voice of millions chanting, “Shame. Shame. Shame.” It’s society’s way of dealing with someone different.'”
—from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
” . . . you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.”
—from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
“‘ . . . in this country, when something is out of order, then the quickest way to get it fixed is the best way.'”
—from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
” . . . most of us—are machines with flaws inside that can’t be repaired, flaws born in, or flaws beat in over so many years of the guy running head-on into solid things that by the time the hospital found him he was bleeding rust in some vacant lot.”
—from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
“[McMurphy] sounds like he’s way above them, talking down, like he’s sailing fifty yards overhead, hollering at those below on the ground. He sounds big. I hear him coming down the hall, and he sounds big in the way he walks, and he sure don’t slide; he’s got iron on his heels and he rings it on the floor like horseshoes.”
—from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
“I been silent so long now it’s gonna roar out of me like floodwaters and you think the guy telling you this is ranting and raving my God; you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. It’s still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.”
—from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
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