O'henry Quotes & Sayings

What ye have been ye still shall be, When we are dust the dust among, O yellow flowers! — Henry Austin Dobson

I love Terry O'Quinn. He's a wonderful guy, wonderful actor. — Henry Ian Cusick

The Give and Take Athletic Association lived up to its name. The hall of the association in Orchard street was fitted out with muscle- making inventions. With the fibres thus builded up the members were wont to engage the police and rival social and athletic organisations in joyous combat. Between these more serious occupations the Saturday night hop with the paper-box factory girls came as a refining influence and as an efficient screen. — O. Henry

She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim ownership). — O. Henry

Decided?" his mother continued with no scant irony. "He hasn't yet made up his mind, and we sail at ten o'clock!" "What does it matter when my things are put up?" the young man said. "There's no crowd at this moment; there will be cabins to spare. I'm waiting for a telegram - that will settle it. I just walked up to the club to see if it was come - they'll send it there because — Henry James

Where Norman Rockwell is the Artist for the man on the street, O'Henry is his author. — Sonia Rumzi

But never mind; faint heart never won true Friend. O Friend, may it come to pass, once, that when you are my Friend I may be yours. — Henry David Thoreau

I've had a lot of lieutenants over the years, and all the good ones were sick, sick individuals. You might be the best one yet. — Henry V. O'Neil

Never diagnosed the enemy before. — Henry V. O'Neil

O Prince, our eyes contemplate with admiration and transmit to the soul the wonderful and varied spectacle of this universe. The night veils without doubt a part of this glorious creation; but day comes to reveal to us this great work, which extends from earth even into the plains of the ether. — Henry David Thoreau

There are stories in everything. I've got some of my best yarns from park benches, lampposts, and newspaper stands. — O. Henry

The pie should be eaten "while it is yet florescent, white or creamy yellow, with the merest drip of candied juice along the edges, (as if the flavor were so good to itself that its own lips watered!) of a mild and modest warmth, the sugar suggesting jelly, yet not jellied, the morsels of apple neither dissolved nor yet in original substance, but hanging as it were in a trance between the spirit and the flesh of applehood ... then, O blessed man, favored by all the divinities! eat, give thanks, and go forth, 'in apple-pie order!'" — Henry Ward Beecher

When as a child I laughed and wept, time crept. When as a youth I waxed more bold, time strolled. When I became a full-grown man, time RAN. When older still I daily grew, time FLEW. Soon I shall find, in passing on, time gone. O Christ! wilt Thou have saved me then? Amen. — Henry Twells

It gives men courage and ambition and the nerve for anything. It has the colour of gold, is clear as a glass and shines after dark as if the sunshine were still in it. — O. Henry

Bohemia 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. Henry

It was you, you who brought me the pardon. Pee on me, won't you. It would be like benediction. O, what a sleepwalker I have been! — Henry Miller

There'll never be a perfect breakfast eaten until some man grows arms long enough to stretch down to New Orleans for his coffee & over to Norfolk for his rolls, & reaches up to Vermont & digs a slice of butter out of a spring-house, & then turns over a beehive close to a white clover patch out in Indiana for the rest. Then he'd come pretty close to making a meal on the amber that the gods eat on Mount Olympia. — O. Henry

there was yet the assurance of such power in the preparation of the whole, that we knew her to be merely running over the chords of our appetite with preliminary savors, as a musician acquaints his touch with the keys of an unfamiliar piano before breaking into brilliant and triumphant execution. Within a week she had mastered — O. Henry

Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature. — O. Henry

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. — O. Henry

A holiday in a new dress-can earth offer anything more enchanting? — O. Henry

Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. — O. Henry

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. — O. Henry

Henry O. Sturges, born in England, March 2nd, 1563. Landed at Roanoke, July 27th, 1587. Friend to the American Revolution, present at the Battles of Trenton and Yorktown, staunch supporter of the North in its hour of need, adviser to presidents, a decorated soldier who distinguished himself in the trenches of the Great War, and member of the Union Brotherhood - a collective of vampires dedicated to preserving the freedom of man and his dominion over the earth. — Seth Grahame-Smith

By nature and doctrines I am addicted to the habit of discovering choice places wherein to feed. — O. Henry

He could talk through twenty cigarettes on any topic that you brought up. And he never sat up when he could lie down; and never stood when he could sit. — O. Henry

He'd always been willing to confess his faults, for, by admitting them, it was as if he made them no longer exist. — Truman Capote

Build me straight. O worthy Master! Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel That shall laugh at all disaster, And with wave and whirlwind wrestle! — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

O Eternal Father, we commend to Thy protection and care the members of the Marine Corps. Guide and direct them in the defense of our country and in the maintenance of justice among nations. Protect them in the hour of danger. Grant that wherever they serve they may be loyal to their high traditions and that at all times they may put their trust in Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. — Henry Knox Sherrill

But Quinn held the fuzzy handcuffs in his hands, looking them over closely, and he smiled. Oh, hey, did you want to keep these for when your invisible boyfriend returns from his fake vacation? — Laura Anderson Kurk

Overheard at O'Banion's Beer Emporium: "Pardon me, darlin', but I'm writin' a telephone book. C'n I have yer number? — Henry D. Spalding

There are a few editor men with whom I am privileged to come in contact. It has not been long since it was their habit to come in contact with me. There is a difference. — O. Henry

Future historians trying to determine what it was like to be alive in fin de millennium America should read the last two decades of O. Henry and Best American short-story collections. — Gary Krist

He began work on the second volume on 3 April 1753, and seemed newly energized. 'O God who hast hitherto supported me,' he could write in his diary, 'enable me to proceed in this labour & in the Whole task of my present state', so that 'when I shall render up at the last day an account of the talent committed to me I may receive pardon for the sake of Jesus Christ'.14 — Henry Hitchings

I'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. Henry

If on creation's morn the king of heaven
To shrubs and flowers a sovereign lord had given,
O beauteous rose, he had anointed thee
Of shrubs and flowers the sovereign lord to be;
The spotless emblem of unsullied truth,
The smile of beauty and the glow of youth,
The garden's pride, the grace of vernal bowers,
The blush of meadows, and the eye of flowers. — Henry George Bohn

I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring some rust, ... confess that I am astonished at the power of endurance, to say nothing of the moral insensibility, of my neighbors who confine themselves to shops and offices the whole day for weeks and months, aye, and years almost together. I know not what manner of stuff they are of,
sitting there now at three o'clock in the afternoon, as if it were three o'clock in the morning. — Henry David Thoreau

The bottle, with its impotent message, was gone out to sea, and the problem that it had provoked was reduced to a simple sum in addition - one and one make two, by the rule of arithmetic; one by the rule of romance. — O. Henry

Could Henry Ford produce the Book of Kells? Certainly not. He would quarrel initially with the advisability of such a project and then prove it was impossible. — Flann O'Brien

If men knew how women pass the time when they are alone, they'd never marry. — O. Henry

In front the sea was spread, a smiling jailer, but even more incorruptible than the frowning mountains. — O. Henry

Whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. — O. Henry

The Lone Star of Africa Land of the free, on your beach and sacred forests loves flourished. You, Liberia, you my love to echo, the scream of freedom, holding tight and will never let go. O beautiful land, The Lone star for decades has survived wars and tribalism the elders who keep the ancestral treasures that resulted in Vandalism. When will morning break for great leaders to stand for what is right Mother Liberia? — Henry Johnson Jr

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er, Leads by the hand her little child to bed, Half willing, half reluctant to be led, And leave his broken playthings on the floor. Still gazing at them through the open door, Nor wholly reassured and comforted By promises of others in their stead Which, the more splendid, may not please him more; So Nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest so gently, that we go Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, Being too full of sleep to understand How far the unknown transcends the what we know. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I constantly worry about my family and my kids. 'Are they O.K., what are they doing right now?' — Dwight Henry

O' who will walk with me along lifes merry way? A comrade blithe and full of glee, who dares to laugh out loud and free ... — Henry Van Dyke

Then from the neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, wildest of singers, Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the water, Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music, That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to listen. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American. — O. Henry

It brings up happy old days when I was only a farmer and not an agriculturist. — O. Henry

Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts, -a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments, though it may be, -
Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart were hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot,
O'er the grave where our hero we buried. — Henry David Thoreau

How long you been in the infantry, sir? Anything under ten miles counts as 'almost there'. — Henry V. O'Neil

When a man begins to be hilarious in a sorrowful way you can bet a million that he is dyeing his hair. — O. Henry

Ah, yes, the sea is still and deep, All things within its bosom sleep! A single step, and all is o'er, A plunge, a bubble, and no more. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

O, Love's but a dance,
Where Time plays the fiddle!
See the couples advance -
O, Love's but a dance!
A whisper, a glance,
"Shall we twirl down the middle?"
O, Love's but a dance,
Where Time plays the fiddle! — Henry Austin Dobson

According to the strange mathematics of the god of mutual affinity, the shadows that clouded their pasts when united became only half as dense instead of darker.

- The World And The Door — O. Henry

I am less affected by their heroism who stood up for half an hour in the front line at Buena Vista, than by the steady and cheerful valor of the men who inhabit the snow-plow for their winter quarters; who have not merely the three-o'-clock-in-the-morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest, but whose courage does not go to rest so early, who go to sleep only when the storm sleeps or the sinews of their iron steed are frozen. — Henry David Thoreau

You help us, they'll lock you up for the rest of your life. — Henry V. O'Neil

It's important to have a buddy like that. Somebody who'll stop you from doing that really stupid thing you were gonna do just because you couldn't think of anything better.
unidentified soldier, eulogizing his dead buddy — Henry V. O'Neil

My grandmother once told my mother that there is a splice of quartz inside each of us, like the quartz inside a compass or clock. We feel the stone glow warm when we find what it is we are meant to do. My grandmother was a singer; voice was her quartz, a second heartbeat that reminded her always of who she was. My mother's quartz is dance and Joaquin's is the piano. The saddest souls in the world, my mother believes, are those who never discover this thing within them. There is a difference between those who wander in search of that glow and those who wander in hopes of evading it. It is frightening, after all - that first awakening when the radiance within threatens to topple you. Even more terrifying is the decision to allow the fire to continue smoldering, because the brighter you let it get, the more terrible the darkness should you ever let it out."

- Elizabeth Genovise "Irises" (O. Henry prize winner 2016) — Elizabeth Genovise

Wesley, the younger child, had had rheumatic fever when he was seven and Mrs. May thought this was what had caused him to be an intellectual. — Flannery O'Connor

In the Big City a man will disappear with the suddenness and completeness of the flame of a candle that is blown out. — O. Henry

What the young writer is looking for is not a critic who will slap him on the back and say, 'Greatest thing since O. Henry,' but rather the one who will toss the manuscript down in disgust, with 'You know better than that! It's rotten! Do it all over again!' — Henry Sydnor Harrison

Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling - something — O. Henry

Because Banshees don't think much of medals! — Henry V. O'Neil

The 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. Henry

Why, I've seen Kentuckians who hated whiskey, Virginians who weren't descended from Pocahontas, Indianians who hadn't written a novel, Mexicans who didn't wear velvet trousers with silver dollars sewed along the seams, funny Englishmen, spendthrift Yankees, cold-blooded Southerners, narrow- minded Westerners, and New Yorkers who were too busy to stop for an hour on the street to watch a one-armed grocer's clerk do up cranberries in paper bags. Let a man be a man and don't handicap him with the label of any section. — O. Henry

In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called "places. — O. Henry

A wise friend told me that we all could use more than one set of parents - our relations with the original set are too intense, and need dissipating. — Alice Adams

O Lord God, we pray that we may be inspired to nobleness of life in the least things. May we dignify all our daily life. May we set such a sacredness upon every part of our life, that nothing shall be trivial, nothing unimportant, and nothing dull, in the daily round. — Henry Ward Beecher

The three-o'-clock in the morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest. — Henry David Thoreau

It shall be a duty and a pleasing sport to wander with Momus beneath the tropic stars where Melpomene once stalked austere. — O. Henry

And most wonderful of all are words, and how they make friends one with another, being oft associated, until not even obituary notices them do part. — O. Henry

Sure thou did'st nourish once! and many springs, Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers, Passed o'er thy head; many light hearts and wings, Which now are dead, lodg'd in thy living bowers. And still a new succession sings and flies; Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot Towards the old and still-enduring skies; While the low violet thrives at their root. — Henry Vaughan

We may achieve climate, but weather is thrust upon us. — O. Henry

ANTHONY DOERR is the author of the story collections Memory Wall and The Shell Collector, the novel About Grace, and the memoir Four Seasons in Rome. He has won numerous prizes both in the United States and overseas, including four O. Henry Prizes, three Pushcart Prizes, the Rome Prize, the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award, the National Magazine Award for fiction, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Story Prize. Raised in Cleveland, Doerr lives in Boise, Idaho, with his wife and two sons. — Anthony Doerr

Despite a legacy consisting of enough violence and death for twenty men, Jackson admitted to having two regrets on his deathbed: "I didn't shoot Henry Clay and I didn't murder John C. Calhoun." In a life rich with murdering people for little-to-no reason, Jackson's only regret was that he didn't kill quite enough people. People like Calhoun, who, it should be noted, was Jackson's vice president. No one is safe from Jackson's wrath. — Daniel O'Brien

All great men have declared that they owe their sucess to the aid and encouragement of some brilliant woman. — O. Henry

Ransie was a narrow six feet of sallow brown skin and yellow hair. The imperturbability of the mountains hung upon him like a suit of armor. The woman was calicoed, angled, snuff-brushed, and weary with unknown desires. Through it all gleamed a faint protest of cheated youth unconscious of its loss. — O. Henry

My life is like an O Henry story ... the funniest girl in the world and the boy who never laughs. — Rainbow Rowell

Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man's starving! — O. Henry

If a person has lived through war, poverty and love, he has lived a full life — O. Henry

O thou child of many prayers!
Life hath quicksands, Life hath snares!
Care and age come unawares! — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

O God!' I screamed, and 'O God!' again and again; for there before my eyes
pale and shaken, and half fainting, and groping before him with his hands, like a man restored from death
there stood Henry Jekyll! — Robert Louis Stevenson

Most wonderful of all are words, and how they make friends one with another. — O. Henry

Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon Like a magician extended his golden want o'er the landscape; Trinkling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Write what you like; there is no other rule. — O. Henry

I 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. Henry

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. — Henry Cloud

Good units walk a thin line between indiscipline and ineffectiveness. Ignore the rules too often and you've got a mob, but enforce the rules too strictly and you've got a herd. — Henry V. O'Neil

O lovely eyes of azure, Clear as the waters of a brook that run Limpid and laughing in the summer sun! — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It is said that love makes the world go 'round - the announcement lacks verification. It's wind from the dinner horn that does it. — O. Henry

She had read enough about teenagers to understand you couldn't confront them directly. You couldn't even agree with them. The best strategy was to feign indifference to whatever wrong direction they were headed in, then plop in little facts, like Alka-Seltzers, round innocuous comments, let those sink in, take slow, antidotal effect . . . — Melissa Pritchard

Your people sell the weapons. My people use them. — Henry V. O'Neil

This is what I hate most about guys like you. You didn't even try. — Henry V. O'Neil

Take them, O Death! and bear away Whatever thou canst call thine own! Thine image, stamped upon this clay, Doth give thee that, but that alone! — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sail forth into the sea of life, O gentle, loving, trusting wife, And safe from all adversity Upon the bosom of that sea Thy comings and thy goings be! For gentleness and love and trust Prevail o'er angry wave and gust; And in the wreck of noble lives Something immortal still survives. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

With all the god-awful suffering in this war, I suppose somebody ought to be enjoying it. — Henry V. O'Neil

You can pray and fight at the same time, Corporal. Especially if you learn how before things get rough. It's important to have a philosophy of life ... and of death. — Henry V. O'Neil

Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence — O. Henry

It was the ultimate cautionary tale, the moral being Don't fall, as if they were made of glass. In a sense they were
their fragility was irrefutable, medically proven
and yet Emily detested the inevitable rundown of accidents and tragedies, the more fortunate clucking their tongues and counting their blessings, all the while knowing it was just a matter of time. She didn't need to be reminded that she was a single misstep from disaster, especially here, without Henry, surrounded by the survivors of an earlier life. — Stewart O'Nan