Quotes from O. Henry

True adventurers have never been plentiful. They who are set down in print as such have been mostly business men with newly invented methods. They have been out after the things they wanted - golden fleeces, holy grails, lady loves, treasures, crowns, and fame. The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate. A fine example was the Prodigal Sob - when he started back home.

When the hour comes it is to remind him of a story. Synopsis: A French girl says to her suitor: "Did you ask my father for my hand at nine o'clock this morning, as you said you would?" "I did not," he. replies. "At nine o'clock I was fighting a duel with swords in the Bois de Boulogne." "Coward!" she hisses.

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

Eight dollars a week or a million a year—what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer.

Then it's not,' says I, 'and we're after having a pleasant evening, Miss Flynn. Have ye seen the sights of this new Coney Island, then? I presume ye have come here for that purpose,' says I.

Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

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.

Between blasts she resorted to Epictetian philosophy in the form of pepsin chewing gum.

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

We still say 'the apple of the eye' when we wish to describe something superlatively precious.

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

Jeff is in the line of unillegal graft. He is not to be dreaded by widows and orphans; he is a reducer of surplusage. His favorite disguise is that of the target-bird at which the spendthrift or the reckless investor may shy a few inconsequential dollars. He is readily vocalized by tobacco; so, with the aid of two thick and easy-burning brevas, I got the story of his latest Autolycan adventure.

Mr. Ramsay was the head clerk; and as far as I am concerned I am for him. He never pinched the girls' arms when he passed them in dark corners of the store; and when he told them stories when business was dull and the girls giggled and said: "Oh, pshaw!" it wasn't G. Bernard they meant at all.

the crystal air, with some of the efficacy of faith, seemed to remove the mountains almost to the sea, bringing them so near that one might count the scarred glades on their wooded sides.

Tis the opinion of myself, Sanderson Pratt, who sets this down, that the educational system of the United States should be in the hands of the weather bureau. I can give you good reasons for it; and you can't tell me why our college professors shouldn't be transferred to the meteorological department.

I should like to be a periwinkle, said he, mysteriously, on the top of a valley, and sing tooralloo-ralloo. This was clearly too obscure, so I turned again to Coglan.

I want to ask him to wait, she said. I have just found my father, and I want it to be just we two for a while. I want to tell him he will have to wait.

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

We are grown stiff with the ramrod of convention down our backs. ???? ?????, ????? ??????????? ???????? ???????? ???????????, ????? ???????????. (O. Henry, The Green Door)

You see this robe that I wear?" Bellchambers caressingly touched the straight-hanging garment: "At last I have found something that will not bag at the knees.

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.

The consul was interested in his report. He was only twenty-four; and he had not been in Coralio long enough for his enthusiasm to cool in the heat of the tropics — a paradox that may be allowed between Cancer and Capricorn.

Up with the other one, ordered the burglar. You might be amphibious and shoot with your left. You can count two, can't you? Hurry up, now.