Top 140 O. Henry Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “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.”

— O. Henry

102. “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.”

— O. Henry

103. “A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.”

— O. Henry

104. “The gray ghost that sometimes peeps through the rings of smoke is that of slain old King Convention. Freedom is the tyrant that holds them in slavery.”

— O. Henry

105. “By rights you’re a king. If I was you, I’d call for a new deal.”

— O. Henry

106. “But now he was little more than a whimpering oyster led to be devoured on the sands of a Southern sea by the artful walrus, Circumstance, and the implacable carpenter, Fate.”

— O. Henry

107. “Except in streetcars one should never be unnecessarily rude to a lady.”

— O. Henry

108. “We often hear “shop-girls” spoken of. No such persons exist. There are girls who work in shops. They make their living that way. But why turn their occupation into an adjective? Let us be fair. We do not refer to the girls who live on Fifth Avenue as “marriage-girls.”

— O. Henry

109. “He had become enveloped in the Indian Summer of the Soul.”

— O. Henry

110. “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

111. “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

112. “We still say ‘the apple of the eye’ when we wish to describe something superlatively precious.”

— O. Henry

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

— O. Henry

114. “If there was ever an aviary overstocked with jays it is that Yaptouwn on the Hudson called New York.”

— O. Henry

115. “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.”

— O. Henry

116. “He studied cities as women study their reflections.”

— O. Henry

117. “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.”

— O. Henry

118. “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

119. “She wore life as a rose in her bosom.”

— O. Henry

120. “Aglaia looked up at him with a tender smile. “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.”

— O. Henry

121. “The air was full of human essence, of artificial enticement, of coquetry, indolence, pleasure – the man-made sense of existence.”

— O. Henry

122. “The most lonely thing in the world is a soul when it is preparing to go on its far journey.”

— O. Henry

123. “The expression on Dodson’s face changed in an instant to one of cold ferocity mingled with inexorable cupidity. The soul of the man showed itself for a moment like an evil face in the window of a reputable house.”

— O. Henry

124. “Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year – what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.”

— O. Henry

125. “Where the smoke cleared, 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.”

— O. Henry

126. “Give me,” says Pogue, “a big city for my vacation. Especially New York. I’m not much fond of New Yorkers, and Manhattan is about the only place on the globe where I don’t find any.”

— O. Henry

127. “Don’t run down your job, Aunt Liberty; you’re all right, all right.”

— O. Henry

128. “We would call no one a lobster without good and sufficient claws.”

— O. Henry

129. “One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.”

— O. Henry

130. “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.”

— O. Henry

131. “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.”

— O. Henry

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

— O. Henry

133. “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.”

— O. Henry

134. “That sounds self-indulgent and gratifying without vulgar ostentation,” says I; “and I don’t see how money could be better invested. Give me a cuckoo clock and a Sep Winner’s Self-Instructor for the Banjo, and I’ll join you.”

— O. Henry

135. “There was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view.”

— O. Henry

136. “Be content with what thou seest; and wait until Time and Experience shall teach thee to find jealousy behind the sweet smile, and hatred under the honeyed word!’ “This.”

— O. Henry

137. “In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called “places.” These “places” make strange angles and curves. One street crosses itself a time or two. An artist once discovered a valuable possibility in this street. Suppose a collector with a bill for paints, paper and canvas should, in traversing this route, suddenly meet himself coming back, without a cent having been paid on account!”

— O. Henry

138. “We were in the main dining-room, and there was a fine-dressed crowd there, all talking loud and enjoyable about the two St. Louis topics, the water supply and the colour line. They mix the two subjects so fast that strangers often think they are discussing water-colours; and that has given the old town something of a rep as an art centre.”

— O. Henry

139. “The old couple were childless – they had only a married daughter living in Brooklyn.”

— O. Henry

140. “It would seem that the story is ended, instead of begun; that the close of a tragedy and the climax of a romance have covered the ground of interest; but, to the more curious reader it shall be some slight instruction to trace the close threads that underlie the ingenuous web of circumstances.”

— O. Henry

141. “But when a sick person begins to feel that he’s going to die, half my work is useless.”

— O. Henry

142. “The boys have all laid in enough footwear to last ’em ten years; and there’s nothing doing in the shoe store but dolcy far nienty.”

— O. Henry

143. “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.”

— O. Henry

144. “But Elsie thought she could find it. She had heard that policemen, when politely addressed, or thumbscrewed by an investigation committee, will give up information and addresses.”

— O. Henry