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. HenryRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Bohemia represents a romanticized idea of a carefree lifestyle that's ultimately elusive.
In this quote, O. Henry reflects on the concept of Bohemia as an enchanting and unattainable lifestyle filled with artistic freedom and spontaneity. He suggests that when one seeks to formally claim such a lifestyle, it slips away like a mirage, highlighting the irony that true freedom and creativity cannot be bound by formalities or desires for possession.
Themes
BohemiaFreedomArtLifestyleElusiveness
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote when discussing the challenges of pursuing an artistic career.
More from O. Henry
All quotes →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.
O. HenryRead
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.
O. HenryRead
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. HenryRead
She had become so thoroughly annealed into his life that she was like the air he breathed--necessary but scarcely noticed.
O. HenryRead
He seemed to be made of sunshine and blood-red tissue and clear weather.
O. HenryRead
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As long as you don't practice it, this dying and becoming, You are only a dreary guest on this dark earth.
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