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

O. Henry

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O. Henry
Age: 47 †
Born: 1862
Born: September 11
Died: 1910
Died: June 5
Journalist
Writer
Greensboro
North Carolina
William Sydney Porter
Olivier Henry
Oliver Henry
Business
Beautiful
Great
Swindles
Truly
Belief
Simple

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By nature and doctrines I am addicted to the habit of discovering choice places wherein to feed.
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It's said that love makes the world go around. Let me tell you, the announcement lacks verification. It's the wind from the dinner horn that does it.
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This fair but pitiless city of Manhattan was without a soul ... its inhabitants were manikins moved by wires and springs.
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A good story is like a bitter pill, with the sugar coating inside of it.
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Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.
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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.
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Men to whom life had appeared as a reversible coat - seamy on both sides.
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In the Big City a man will disappear with the suddenness and completeness of the flame of a candle that is blown out.
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A burglar who respects his art always takes his time before taking anything else.
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History is bright and fiction dull with homely men who have charmed women.
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In time truth and science and nature will adapt themselves to art. Things will happen logically, and the villain be discomfited instead of being elected to the board of directors. But in the meantime fiction must not only be divorced from fact, but must pay alimony and be awarded custody of the press despatches.
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You can't appreciate home till you've left it, money till it's spent, your wife till she's joined a woman's club, nor Old Glory till you see it hanging on a broomstick on the shanty of a consul in a foreign town.
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Hospitality in the prairie country is not limited. Even if your enemy passes your way, you must feed him before you shoot him.
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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.
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If you can't write a story that pleases yourself, you will never please the public. But in writing the story forget the public.
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I'll give you the whole secret to short story writing. Here it is. Rule 1: Write stories that please yourself. There is no Rule 2.
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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.
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Most wonderful of all are words, and how they make friends one with another.
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When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard.
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There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl.
O. Henry