O. Henry

I have been called 'The American De Maupassant.' Well, I never wrote a filthy word in my life, and I don't like to be compared to a filthy writer.

I never have time to read now. I did all my reading before I was twenty.

There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.

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.

Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence.

By nature and doctrines I am addicted to the habit of discovering choice places wherein to feed.

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.

It couldn't have happened anywhere but in little old New York.

Write what you like; there is no other rule.

When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard.

A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.

East is East, and West is San Francisco, according to Californians. Californians are a race of people; they are not merely inhabitants of a State.

The people of the State of Texas consist principally of men, women, and children, with a sprinkling of cowboys. The weather is very good, thermometer rarely rising above 2,500 degrees in the shade and hardly ever below 212.

It'll be a great place if they ever finish it.

The Venturer is one who keeps his eye on the hedgerows and wayside groves and meadows while he travels the road to Fortune.

She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim ownership).

By rights you're a king. If I was you, I'd call for a new deal.

It is said that love makes the world go 'round - the announcement lacks verification. It's wind from the dinner horn that does it.

The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate.

It brings up happy old days when I was only a farmer and not an agriculturist.

We may achieve climate, but weather is thrust upon us.

If men knew how women pass the time when they are alone, they'd never marry.

Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man's starving!

Life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

Turn up the lights. I don't want to go home in the dark.