Quote

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.

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
Bills
Injects
Conscience
Stinging
Moral
Irritate
Story
Mosquito
Stories
Mosquitoes
Like
Bores
Drop
Bill

More quotes by 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
Hospitality in the prairie country is not limited. Even if your enemy passes your way, you must feed him before you shoot him.
O. Henry
Image
Broadway - the great sluice that washes out the dust of the gold-mines of Gotham.
O. Henry
Image
By nature and doctrines I am addicted to the habit of discovering choice places wherein to feed.
O. Henry
Image
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.
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
Except in streetcars one should never be unnecessarily rude to a lady.
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
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
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
Image
Bolivar cannot carry double
O. Henry
Image
She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim ownership).
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
A good story is like a bitter pill, with the sugar coating inside of it.
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
We can't buy one minute of time with cash if we could, rich people would live longer.
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
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.
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
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