Huck Finn Friendship Quotes

“Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain’ dead – you ain’ drownded – you’s back agin? It’s too good for true, honey, it’s too good for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o’ you. No, you ain’ dead! you’s back agin, ‘live en soun’, jis de same ole Huck – de same ole Huck, thanks to goodness!”

– Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 15. Jim is happy and thankful to see that Huck is still alive after they after they had lost each other in the fog on the river.

It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a n*****; but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn’t do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn’t done that one if I’d a knowed it would make him feel that way.

– Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 15. Huck was raised to be racist so it takes him a while to apologize to a black man like Jim for lying to him. 13-year-old Huck sees the runaway slave in a different way, plays no more pranks on him and they become friends as they sail down the Mississippi to reach a state where slavery is illegal.

“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.”

– Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 16. Jim is certain that he will soon be free from the bonds of slavery. He thanks Huck for that and says he will never forget him. At this stage they have become close friends, they take care of each other and Jim is like a father figure to Huck, since his own father isn’t.

“Make the best o’ things the way you find ’em, says I – that’s my motto. This ain’t no bad thing that we’ve struck here – plenty grub and an easy life – come, give us your hand, duke, and le’s all be friends.”

The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it. It took away all the uncomfortableness and we felt mighty good over it, because it would a been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the raft; for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be satisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others.

– Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 19. After the Duke and King decide to work together, Huck is relieved. Trust and the acceptance of differences between people help build better friendships and make life on a raft a whole lot easier, he feels. The raft here is a symbol of society.

But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, ‘stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the ONLY one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.

– Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 31. Huck agonizes over whether he should turn in the fugitive slave Jim, as society’s rules demand he should. He tries to come up with something that will “harden” him against the runaway. But his bond of friendship with Jim is so strong and deep, he cannot.

What a head for just a boy to have! If I had Tom Sawyer’s head I wouldn’t trade it off to be a duke, nor mate of a steamboat, nor clown in a circus, nor nothing I can think of. I went to thinking out a plan, but only just to be doing something; I knowed very well where the right plan was going to come from.

– Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 34. Huck looks up to his friend Tom Sawyer and he thinks he has an amazing mind. Despite evidence to the contrary, Huck believes that Tom is smarter than him.
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