Quotes from O. Henry

Miss Phœbe released the low key of the organ. But her work had been well done. The note that she struck had beaten down the doors of a closed memory; and Father Abram held his lost Aglaia close in his arms.

Each 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.

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

There 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.

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

It was beautiful and simple, as truly great swindles are.

Fortune is a prize to be won. Adventure is the road to it. Chance is what may lurk in the shadows at the roadside.

My advice to you if you should ever be in a hold up is to line up with the cowards and save your bravery for an occasion when it may be of some benefit to you.

The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate.

It was beautiful and simple as all truly great swindles are.

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

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.

It couldn't have happened anywhere but in little old New York.

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

There is no well-defined boundary 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 one domain and sometimes in the other.

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

There 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.

Bagdad-on-the-Subway.

Take it from me—he's got the goods.

Each 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.

No friendship is an accident.

Life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

All of us have to be prevaricators, hypocrites, and liars every day of our lives; otherwise the social structure would fall into pieces the first day. We must act in one another's presence just as we must wear clothes. It is for the best

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