Quotes from O. Henry

History is bright and fiction dull with homely men who have charmed women.

Humans were denied the speech of animals. The only common ground of communication upon which dogs and men can get together is in fiction.

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.

Bride knoweth bride at the glance of an eye. And between them swiftly passes comfort and meaning in a language that man and widows wot not of.

A good story is like a bitter pill, with the sugar coating inside of it.

Turn up the lights. I don't want to go home in the dark.

Be 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.

The Venturer is one who keeps his eye on the hedgerows and wayside groves and meadows while he travels the road to Fortune.

It'll be a great place if they ever finish it.

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

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

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

East is East, and West is San Francisco, according to Californians. Californians are a race of people; they are not merely inhabitants of a State.

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

Perhaps there is no happiness in life so perfect as the martyr's.

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

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

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

The people of the State of Texas consist principally of men, women, and children, with a sprinkling of cowboys. The weather is very good, thermometer rarely rising above 2,500 degrees in the shade and hardly ever below 212.

We can't buy one minute of time with cash; if we could, rich people would live longer.

If man knew how women pass the time when they are alone, they'd never marry.

A burglar who respects his art always takes his time before taking anything else.

To a woman nothing seems quite impossible to the powers of the man she worships.

When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard.