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

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She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim ownership).
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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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Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man's starving!
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What is the world at its best but a little round field of the moving pictures with two walking together in it?
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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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It was beautiful and simple, as truly great swindles are.
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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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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.
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Women's weapon, water-drops.
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We can't buy one minute of time with cash if we could, rich people would live longer.
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Broadway - the great sluice that washes out the dust of the gold-mines of Gotham.
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O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
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Of habit, the power that keeps the earth from flying to pieces though there is some silly theory of gravitation.
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The most notable thing about Time is that it is so purely relative. A large amount of reminiscence is, by common consent, conceded to the drowning man and it is not past belief that one may review an entire courtship while removing one's gloves.
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Write what you like there is no other rule.
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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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It'll be a great place if they ever finish it.
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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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A burglar who respects his art always takes his time before taking anything else.
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A good story is like a bitter pill, with the sugar coating inside of it.
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