Top 140 O. Henry Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “A 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. Henry

52. “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

53. “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

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

— O. Henry

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

— O. Henry

56. “It’ll be a great place if they ever finish it.”

— O. Henry

57. “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.”

— O. Henry

58. “He seemed to be made of sunshine and blood-red tissue and clear weather.”

— O. Henry

59. “Maybe the hairs on my head were numbered” she went on with a sudden serious sweetness “but nobody could ever count my love for you”.”

— O. Henry

60. “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.”

— O. Henry

61. “It couldn’t have happened anywhere but in little old New York.”

— O. Henry

62. “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

63. “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.”

— O. Henry

64. “What is the world at its best but a little round field of the moving pictures with two walking together in it?”

— O. Henry

65. “One dollar and eighty-seven cents.”

— O. Henry

66. “He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it.”

— O. Henry

67. “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.”

— O. Henry

68. “Most wonderful of all are words, and how they make friends one with another.”

— O. Henry

69. “It’s an awful thing to hear a strong, desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave at daybreak.”

— O. Henry

70. “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

71. “Will you buy my hair?”

— O. Henry

72. “Perhaps there is no happiness in life so perfect as the martyr’s.”

— O. Henry

73. “Of habit, the power that keeps the earth from flying to pieces; though there is some silly theory of gravitation.”

— O. Henry

74. “Jeff is in the line of unillegal graft. He is not to be dreaded by widows and orphans; he is a reducer of surplusage.”

— O. Henry

75. “Please God, make him think I am still pretty.”

— O. Henry

76. “In dress, habits, manners, provincialism, routine and narrowness, he acquired that charming insolence, that irritating completeness, that sophisticated crassness, that overbalanced poise that makes the Manhattan gentleman so delightfully small in its greatness.”

— O. Henry

77. “Pennies saved one and two at a time.”

— O. Henry

78. “Twenty-five years ago the school children used to chant their lessons. The manner of their delivery was a singsong recitative between the utterance of an Episcopal minister and the drone of a tired sawmill. I mean no disrespect. We must have lumber and sawdust.”

— O. Henry

79. “Men to whom life had appeared as a reversible coat – seamy on both sides.”

— O. Henry

80. “If you live in an atmosphere of luxury, luxury is yours whether your money pays for it, or another’s.”

— O. Henry

81. “Give me a cuckoo clock and a Sep Winner’s Self-Instructor for the Banjo, and I’ll join you.”

— O. Henry

82. “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.”

— O. Henry

83. “She thrusts hurriedly into your hand an extremely hot buttered roll, flashes out a tiny pair of scissors, snips off the second button of your overcoat, meaningly ejaculates the one word, “parallelogram!” and swiftly flies down a cross street, looking back fearfully over her shoulder. That.”

— O. Henry

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

— O. Henry

85. “She had become so thoroughly annealed into his life that she was like the air he breathed – necessary but scarcely noticed.”

— O. Henry

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

— O. Henry

87. “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.”

— O. Henry

88. “The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate. A fine example was the Prodigal Son – when he started back home.”

— O. Henry

89. “Broadway – the great sluice that washes out the dust of the gold-mines of Gotham.”

— O. Henry

90. “What 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. Henry

91. “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

92. “Knowledge is a strong stream of water turned on us through a hose. It disturbs our roots.”

— O. Henry

93. “In the big city the twin spirits Romance and Adventure are always abroad seeking worthy wooers.”

— O. Henry

94. “Oh, come off your perch!” said the other man, who wore glasses. “Your premises won’t come out in the wash. You wind-jammers who apply bandy-legged theories to concrete categorical syllogisms send logical conclusions skallybootin’ into the infinitesimal ragbag. You can’t pull my leg with an old sophism with whiskers on it.”

— O. Henry

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

— O. Henry

96. “Hospitality in the prairie country is not limited. Even if your enemy passes your way, you must feed him before you shoot him.”

— O. Henry

97. “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.”

— O. Henry

98. “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.”

— O. Henry

99. “You’d think New York people was all wise; but no, they can’t get a chance to learn. Every thing’s too compressed. Even the hay-seeds are bailed hay-seeds. But what else can you expect from a town that’s shut off for the world by the ocean on one side and New Jersey on the other?”

— O. Henry

100. “Take of London fog 30 parts; malaria 10 parts, gas leaks 20 parts, dewdrops gathered in a brickyard at sunrise 25 parts; odor of honeysuckle 15 parts. Mix. The mixture will give you an approximate conception of a Nashville drizzle.”

— O. Henry