“I'll not go where there is any of that sort of thing going on, again. It's the sure way, and the only sure way;”
“Now he found out a new thing--namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.”
“It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a 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.”
“It is strange the way the ignorant and inexperienced so often and so undeservedly succeed when the informed and the experienced fail. All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”
“Sure enough, it was just as I had dreaded, he started to climb the tree-""What the Bull?""Of course- who else?""But a bull can't climb a tree.""He can't can he? Since you know so much about it, did you ever see a bull try?""No! I never dreamt of such a thing."Well, then, what is the use of your talking that way, then? Because you never saw a thing done, is that any reason why it can't be done?”
“All right, then, I'll go to hell.”
“You see, he was going for the Holy Grail. The boys all took a flier at the Holy Grail now and then. It was a several years' cruise. They always put in the long absence snooping around, in the most conscientious way, though none of them had any idea where the Holy Grail really was, and I don't think any of them actually expected to find it, or would have known what to do with it if he had run across it.”