Quote

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

O. Henry

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Time
Taking
Humor
Takes
Funny
Burglar
Art
Burglars
Else
Respects
Anything
Criminals
Always
Crime

More quotes by O. Henry

Image
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
Image
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
Image
Whenever he saw a dollar in another man's hands he took it as a personal grudge, if he couldn't take it any other way.
O. Henry
Image
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
Image
Now, girls, if you want to observe a young man hustle out after a pick and shovel, just tell him that your heart is in some other fellow's grave. Young men are grave-robbers by nature.
O. Henry
Image
It was beautiful and simple, as truly great swindles are.
O. Henry
Image
Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.
O. Henry
Image
Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man's starving!
O. Henry
Image
There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
O. Henry
Image
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
Image
Most wonderful of all are words, and how they make friends one with another.
O. Henry
Image
O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
O. Henry
Image
It ain't the roads we take it's what's inside of us that makes us turn out the way we do.
O. Henry
Image
Except in streetcars one should never be unnecessarily rude to a lady.
O. Henry
Image
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
Image
She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim ownership).
O. Henry
Image
We can't buy one minute of time with cash if we could, rich people would live longer.
O. Henry
Image
A good story is like a bitter pill, with the sugar coating inside of it.
O. Henry
Image
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
Image
Women's weapon, water-drops.
O. Henry