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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.

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
Give
Insightful
Whole
Rule
Giving
Short
Writing
Please
Secret
Story
Write
Stories

More quotes by O. Henry

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Humans were denied the speech of animals. The only common ground of communication upon which dogs and men can get together is in fiction.
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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.
O. Henry
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Broadway - the great sluice that washes out the dust of the gold-mines of Gotham.
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Bohemia is nothing more than the little country in which you do not live. If you try to obtain citizenship in it, at once the court and retinue pack the royal archives and treasure and move away beyond the hills.
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This fair but pitiless city of Manhattan was without a soul ... its inhabitants were manikins moved by wires and springs.
O. Henry
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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
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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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Bolivar cannot carry double
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If there ever was an aviary overstocked with jays it is that Yaptown-on-the-Hudson, call New York. Cosmopolitan they call it, you bet. So's a piece of fly-paper. You listen close when they're buzzing and trying to pull their feet out of the sticky stuff. Little old New York's good enough for us--that's what they sing.
O. Henry
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When I see a shipwreck, I like to know what caused the disaster...I learned nothing but the glow that wrapped her face when the soup came. That's the story.
O. Henry
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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.
O. Henry
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The magi, as you know, were wise men wonderfully wise men who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents.
O. Henry
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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.
O. Henry
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Beauty is Nature in perfection circularity is its chief attribute. Behold the full moon, the enchanting golf ball, the domes of splendid temples, the huckleberry pie, the wedding ring, the circus ring, the ring for the waiter, and the round of drinks.
O. Henry
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O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
O. Henry
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Greenwich Village... the village of low rents and high arts.
O. Henry
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There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl.
O. Henry
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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.
O. Henry
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Women's weapon, water-drops.
O. Henry
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When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard.
O. Henry