Quote

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

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
Story
Write
Stories
Writing
Never
Pleases
Please
Public
Forget

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
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
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
History is bright and fiction dull with homely men who have charmed women.
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
It'll be a great place if they ever finish 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
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
We may achieve climate, but weather is thrust upon us.
O. Henry
Image
A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.
O. Henry
Image
No friendship is an accident.
O. Henry
Image
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.
O. Henry
Image
All of us have to be prevaricators, hypocrites, and liars every day of our lives otherwise the social structure would fall into pieces the first day. We must act in one another's presence just as we must wear clothes. It is for the best
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
A burglar who respects his art always takes his time before taking anything else.
O. Henry
Image
By nature and doctrines I am addicted to the habit of discovering choice places wherein to feed.
O. Henry
Image
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
Image
O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
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
I've got some of my best yarns from park benches, lamp posts and newspaper stands.
O. Henry