O. Henry

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'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.

Yes, I get dry spells. Sometimes I can't turn out a thing for three months. When one of those spells comes on I quit trying to work and go out and see something of life. You can't write a story that's got any life in it by sitting at a writing table and thinking. You've got to get out into the streets, into the crowds, talk with people, and feel the rush and throb of real life-that's the stimulant for a story writer.

But the best, in my opinion, was the home life in the little flat--the ardent, voluble chats after the day's study; the cozy dinners and fresh, light breakfasts; the interchange of ambitions--ambitions interwoven each with the other's or else inconsiderable--the mutual help and inspiration; and--overlook my artlessness--stuffed olives and cheese sandwiches at 11 p.m.

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.

She had become so thoroughly annealed into his life that she was like the air he breathed--necessary but scarcely noticed.

He seemed to be made of sunshine and blood-red tissue and clear weather.

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

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.

Humans were denied the speech of animals. The only common ground of communication upon which dogs and men can get together is in fiction.

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

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.

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

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.

We can't buy one minute of time with cash; if we could, rich people would live longer.

Hospitality in the prairie country is not limited. Even if your enemy passes your way, you must feed him before you shoot him.

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

[A]ll of life, as we know it, moves in little, unavailing circles. More justly than to anything else, it can be likened to the game of baseball. Crack! we hit the ball, and away we go. If we earn a run (in life we call it success) we get back to the home plate and sit upon a bench. If we are thrown out, we walk back to the home plate -- and sit upon a bench.

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.

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