There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
O. HenryThe magi, as you know, were wise men wonderfully wise men who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents.
O. HenryWhat else can you expect from a town thats shut off from the world by the ocean on one side and New Jersey on the other?
O. HenryThere is a saying that no man has tasted the full flavor of life until he has known poverty, love, and war.
O. HenryEast is East, and West is San Francisco, according to Californians. Californians are a race of people; they are not merely inhabitants of a State.
O. HenryHumans were denied the speech of animals. The only common ground of communication upon which dogs and men can get together is in fiction.
O. HenryIf you can't write a story that pleases yourself, you will never please the public. But in writing the story forget the public.
O. HenryWhen a man begins to be hilarious in a sorrowful way you can bet a million that he is dyeing his hair.
O. HenryYou can't appreciate home till you've left it, money till it's spent, your wife till she's joined a woman's club, nor Old Glory till you see it hanging on a broomstick on the shanty of a consul in a foreign town.
O. HenryEach of us, when our day's work is done, must seek our ideal, whether it be love or pinochle or lobster à la Newburg, or the sweet silence of the musty bookshelves.
O. HenryI wanted to paint a picture some day that people would stand before and forget that it was made of paint. I wanted it to creep into them like a bar of music and mushroom there like a soft bullet.
O. HenryShe had become so thoroughly annealed into his life that she was like the air he breathed--necessary but scarcely noticed.
O. HenryThe most notable thing about Time is that it is so purely relative. A large amount of reminiscence is, by common consent, conceded to the drowning man; and it is not past belief that one may review an entire courtship while removing one's gloves.
O. HenryLove and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man's starving!
O. HenryThere is one day that is ours. There is one day when all we Americans who are not self-made go back to the old home to eat saleratus biscuits and marvel how much nearer to the porch the old pump looks than it used to. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.
O. HenryI'll give you the whole secret to short story writing. Here it is. Rule 1: Write stories that please yourself. There is no Rule 2.
O. HenryOf habit, the power that keeps the earth from flying to pieces; though there is some silly theory of gravitation.
O. HenryA story with a moral appended is like the bill of a mosquito. It bores you, and then injects a stinging drop to irritate your conscience.
O. HenryBy nature and doctrines I am addicted to the habit of discovering choice places wherein to feed.
O. HenryThere is this difference between the grief of youth and that of old age; youth's burden is lightened by as much of it as another shares; old age may give and give, but the sorrow remains the same.
O. HenryBut the best, in my opinion, was the home life in the little flat--the ardent, voluble chats after the day's study; the cozy dinners and fresh, light breakfasts; the interchange of ambitions--ambitions interwoven each with the other's or else inconsiderable--the mutual help and inspiration; and--overlook my artlessness--stuffed olives and cheese sandwiches at 11 p.m.
O. HenryBut how is it now? All we get is orders; and the laws go out of the state. Them legislators set up there at Austin and don't do nothing but makes laws against kerosene oil and schoolbooks being brought into the state. I reckon they was afraid some man would go home some evening after work and light up and get an education and go to work and make laws to repeal aforesaid laws.
O. HenryI'll give you the sole secret of short-story writing, and here it is: Rule 1. Write stories that please yourself. There is no rule 2. The technical points you can get from Bliss Perry. If you can't write a story that pleases yourself, you will never please the public. But in writing the story forget the public.
O. HenryWhen I see a shipwreck, I like to know what caused the disaster...I learned nothing but the glow that wrapped her face when the soup came. That's the story.
O. HenryAll great men have declared that they owe their sucess to the aid and encouragement of some brilliant woman.
O. HenryBe always decent and right in your home town; and when you're on the road, never take more than four glasses of beer a day or play higher than a twenty-five-cent limit.
O. HenryIt's said that love makes the world go around. Let me tell you, the announcement lacks verification. It's the wind from the dinner horn that does it.
O. HenryThere is no well defined boundary line between honesty and dishonesty. The frontiers of one blend with the outside limits of the other, and he who attempts to tread this dangerous ground may be sometimes in the one domain and sometimes in the other.
O. HenryIf there was ever an aviary overstocked with jays it is that Yaptouwn on the Hudson called New York
O. HenryYes, I get dry spells. Sometimes I can't turn out a thing for three months. When one of those spells comes on I quit trying to work and go out and see something of life. You can't write a story that's got any life in it by sitting at a writing table and thinking. You've got to get out into the streets, into the crowds, talk with people, and feel the rush and throb of real life-that's the stimulant for a story writer.
O. HenryHospitality in the prairie country is not limited. Even if your enemy passes your way, you must feed him before you shoot him.
O. HenryBohemia is nothing more than the little country in which you do not live. If you try to obtain citizenship in it, at once the court and retinue pack the royal archives and treasure and move away beyond the hills.
O. HenryWhat is the world at its best but a little round field of the moving pictures with two walking together in it?
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