O. Henry Quotes

"We are grown stiff with the ramrod of convention down our backs.

Наша спина, вечно подпираемая железным каркасом условностей, давно закостенела.

(O. Henry, "The Green Door")"

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 old couple were childless — they had only a married daughter living in Brooklyn.

"They had met at the table d'hôte of an Eighth Street "Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted."

She wore life as a rose in her bosom.

John Perkins was not accustomed to analyzing his emotions. But as he sat in his Katy-bereft 10×12 parlor he hit unerringly upon the keynote of his discomfort. He knew now that Katy was necessary to his happiness. His feeling for her, lulled into unconsciousness by the dull round of domesticity, had been sharply stirred by the loss of her presence. Has it not been dinned into us by proverb and sermon and fable that we never prize the music till the sweet-voiced bird has flown — or in other no less florid and true utterances?

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

after ingurgitating another modicum of the royal booze,

One dollar and eighty-seven cents.

Between blasts she resorted to Epictetian philosophy in the form of pepsin chewing gum.

Kerner's father was worth a couple of millions. He was willing to stand for art, but he drew the line at the factory girl. So Kerner disinherited his father and walked out to a cheap studio and lived on sausages for breakfast and on Farroni for dinner.

She started to try to cover the sad marks of what she had done. Love and large-hearted giving, when added together, can leave deep marks. It is never easy to cover these marks, dear friends — never easy.

We still say ‘the apple of the eye’ when we wish to describe something superlatively precious.

But Elsie thought she could find it. She had heard that policemen, when politely addressed, or thumbscrewed by an investigation committee, will give up information and addresses.

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