O Henry Memorial Quotes

A wise friend told me that we all could use more than one set of parents - our relations with the original set are too intense, and need dissipating. ~ Alice Adams

He'd always been willing to confess his faults, for, by admitting them, it was as if he made them no longer exist. ~ Truman Capote

Mrs. May winced. She thought the word Jesus should be kept inside the church building like other words inside the bedroom. ~ Flannery O'Connor

She had read enough about teenagers to understand you couldn't confront them directly. You couldn't even agree with them. The best strategy was to feign indifference to whatever wrong direction they were headed in, then plop in little facts, like Alka-Seltzers, round innocuous comments, let those sink in, take slow, antidotal effect . . . ~ Melissa Pritchard

Till the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, most American men wore hats to work. What happened? Did our guys - suddenly scouting overhead for worse Sunday raids - come to fear their hatbrims' interference? ~ Allan Gurganus

Write what you like; there is no other rule. ~ O. Henry

You'd think New York people was all wise; but no, they can't get a chance to learn. Every thing's too compressed. Even the hay-seeds are bailed hay-seeds. But what else can you expect from a town that's shut off for the world by the ocean on one side and New Jersey on the other? ~ O. Henry

Maybe the hairs on my head were numbered" she went on with a sudden serious sweetness "but nobody could ever count my love for you". ~ O. Henry

O thou child of many prayers!
Life hath quicksands, Life hath snares!
Care and age come unawares! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

Bolivar cannot carry double ~ O. Henry

It was you, you who brought me the pardon. Pee on me, won't you. It would be like benediction. O, what a sleepwalker I have been! ~ Henry Miller

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. Henry

Fortune is a prize to be won. Adventure is the road to it. Chance is what may lurk in the shadows at the roadside. ~ O. Henry

O holy trust! O endless sense of rest! Like the beloved John To lay his head upon the Saviour's breast, And thus to journey on! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

All great men have declared that they owe their sucess to the aid and encouragement of some brilliant woman. ~ O. Henry

At night when I look at Boris' goatee lying on the pillow I get hysterical. O Tania, where now is that warm cunt of yours, those fat, heavy garters, those soft, bulging thighs? There is a bone in my prick six inches long. I will ream out every wrinkle in your cunt, Tania, big with seed. I will send you home to your Sylvester with an ache in your belly and your womb turned inside out. Your Sylvester! Yes, he knows how to build a fire, but I know how to inflame a cunt. I shoot hot bolts into you, Tania, I make your ovaries incandescent. Your Sylvester is a little jealous now? He feels something, does he? He feels the remnants of my big prick. I have set the shores a little wider. I have ironed out the wrinkles. After me you can take on stallions, bulls, rams, drakes, St. Bernards. You can stuff toads, bats, lizards up your rectum. You can shit arpeggios if you like, or string a zither across your navel. I am fucking you, Tania, so that you'll stay fucked. And if you are afraid of being fucked publicly I will fuck you privately. I will tear off a few hairs from your cunt and paste them on Boris' chin. I will bite into your clitoris and spit out two franc pieces... ~ Henry Miller

If a person has lived through war, poverty and love, he has lived a full life ~ O. Henry

The bottle, with its impotent message, was gone out to sea, and the problem that it had provoked was reduced to a simple sum in addition - one and one make two, by the rule of arithmetic; one by the rule of romance. ~ O. Henry

Nothin very bad happen to me lately.
How you explain that? --I explain that, Mr
Bones,
terms o' your bafflin odd sobriety.
Sober as man can get, no girls, no telephones,
what could happen bad to Mr Bones?
--If life is a handkerchief sandwich,

in a modesty of death I join my father
who dared so long agone leave me.
A bullet on a concrete stoop
close by a smothering southern sea
spreadeagled on an island, by my knee.
--You is from hunger, Mr Bones,

I offers you this handkerchief, now set
your left foot by my right foot,
shoulder to shoulder, all that jazz,
arm in arm, by the beautiful sea,
hum a little, Mr Bones.
--I saw nobody coming, so I went instead. ~ John Berryman

My grandmother once told my mother that there is a splice of quartz inside each of us, like the quartz inside a compass or clock. We feel the stone glow warm when we find what it is we are meant to do. My grandmother was a singer; voice was her quartz, a second heartbeat that reminded her always of who she was. My mother's quartz is dance and Joaquin's is the piano. The saddest souls in the world, my mother believes, are those who never discover this thing within them. There is a difference between those who wander in search of that glow and those who wander in hopes of evading it. It is frightening, after all - that first awakening when the radiance within threatens to topple you. Even more terrifying is the decision to allow the fire to continue smoldering, because the brighter you let it get, the more terrible the darkness should you ever let it out."

- Elizabeth Genovise "Irises" (O. Henry prize winner 2016) ~ Elizabeth Genovise

Sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O Union, strong and great. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There are a few editor men with whom I am privileged to come in contact. It has not been long since it was their habit to come in contact with me. There is a difference. ~ O. Henry

For what is in this world but grief and woe?
O God! methinks it were a happy life
To be no better than a homely swain;
To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run-
How many makes the hour full complete,
How many hours brings about the day,
How many days will finish up the year,
How many years a mortal man may live.
When this is known, then to divide the times-
So many hours must I tend my flock;
So many hours must I take my rest;
So many hours must I contemplate;
So many hours must I sport myself;
So many days my ewes have been with young;
So many weeks ere the poor fools will can;
So many years ere I shall shear the fleece:
So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,
Pass'd over to the end they were created,
Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy
To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?
O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.
And to conclude: the shepherd's homely curds,
His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,
All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,
Is far beyond a prince's delicates-
William Shakespeare

He began work on the second volume on 3 April 1753, and seemed newly energized. 'O God who hast hitherto supported me,' he could write in his diary, 'enable me to proceed in this labour & in the Whole task of my present state', so that 'when I shall render up at the last day an account of the talent committed to me I may receive pardon for the sake of Jesus Christ'.14 ~ Henry Hitchings

The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. ~ O. Henry

She thrusts hurriedly into your hand an extremely hot buttered roll, flashes out a tiny pair of scissors, snips off the second button of your overcoat, meaningly ejaculates the one word, "parallelogram!" and swiftly flies down a cross street, looking back fearfully over her shoulder. That ~ O. Henry

There is a quaint old theory that man may have two souls - a peripheral one which serves ordinarily, and a central one which is stirred only at certain times, but then with activity and vigour.
While under the domination of the former a man will shave, vote, pay taxes, give money to his family, buy subscription books and comport himself on the average plan.
But let the central soul suddenly become dominant, and he may, in the twinkling of an eye, turn upon the partner of his joys with furious execration; he may change his politics while you could snap your fingers; he may deal out deadly insult to his dearest friend; he may get him, instanter, to a monastery or a dance hall; he may elope, or hang himself - or he may write a song or poem, or kiss his wife unasked, or give his funds to the search of a microbe. Then the peripheral soul will return; and we have our safe, sane citizen again. It is but the revolt of the Ego against Order; and its effect is to shake up the atoms only that they may settle where they belong. ~ O. Henry

O little feet! that such long years Must wander on through hopes and fears, Must ache and bleed beneath your load; I, nearer to the wayside inn Where toil shall cease and rest begin, Am weary, thinking of your road! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Well, little old Noisyville-on-the Subway is good enough for me. ~ O. Henry

The next day the Indian told me their name for this light,
artoosoq',
and on my inquiring concerning the will-o'-the-wisp, and the like phenomena, he said that his "folks" sometimes saw fires passing along at various heights, even as high as the trees, and making a noise. I was prepared after this to hear of the most startling and unimagined phenomena, witnessed by "his folks"; they are abroad at all hours and seasons in scenes so unfrequented by white men. Nature must have made a thousand revelations to them which are still secrets to us. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Scattered upon the flimsy dresser scarf were half a dozen hairpins - those discreet, indistinguishable friends of womankind, feminine of gender, infinite of mood and uncommunicative of tense. ~ O. Henry

In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called "places. ~ O. Henry

It shall be a duty and a pleasing sport to wander with Momus beneath the tropic stars where Melpomene once stalked austere. ~ O. Henry

Henry O. Sturges, born in England, March 2nd, 1563. Landed at Roanoke, July 27th, 1587. Friend to the American Revolution, present at the Battles of Trenton and Yorktown, staunch supporter of the North in its hour of need, adviser to presidents, a decorated soldier who distinguished himself in the trenches of the Great War, and member of the Union Brotherhood - a collective of vampires dedicated to preserving the freedom of man and his dominion over the earth. ~ Seth Grahame-Smith

I've been religiously reading the O. Henry Prize anthologies every year since college, when I first began trying to write stories. Many of the authors whose work I cherish the most were people I first learned about through The O. Henry Prize Stories - and then I'd go search for their books. ~ Molly Antopol

O God!' I screamed, and 'O God!' again and again; for there before my eyes
pale and shaken, and half fainting, and groping before him with his hands, like a man restored from death
there stood Henry Jekyll! ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

He studied cities as women study their reflections. ~ O. Henry

And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. ~ O. Henry

O most sacred, most loving heart of Jesus, thou art concealed in the Holy Eucharist, and thou beatest for us still ... Thou art the heart of the Most High made man ... Thy Sacred Heart is the instrument and organ of Thy love. It did beat for us. It yearned for us. It ached for our salvation. It was on fire through zeal, that the glory of God might be manifested in and by us ... In worshipping thee I worship my incarnate God, my Emmanuel ~ John Henry Newman

O, Love's but a dance,
Where Time plays the fiddle!
See the couples advance -
O, Love's but a dance!
A whisper, a glance,
"Shall we twirl down the middle?"
O, Love's but a dance,
Where Time plays the fiddle! ~ Henry Austin Dobson

Build me straight. O worthy Master! Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel That shall laugh at all disaster, And with wave and whirlwind wrestle! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Lately it's started to seem to me that here in America our fetishization of self-reliance has taken a wrong turn and has helped enable us to jettison compassion as a national value while still maintaining a vision of ourselves as essentially well-meaning. It hasn't taken a whole lot of common sense, given the evidence of the last few years, to puzzle out the heartlessness of unregulated capitalism, and yet our political class has embraced even more fervently the notion of every man for himself, even given the ever-growing numbers such a philosophy leaves behind. ~ Jim Shepard

Most wonderful of all are words, and how they make friends one with another. ~ O. Henry

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

There is something deliciously melancholy and haunting about rusting roller coasters, faded fiberglass facades, ferris wheels missing two or three cars, the gradual decay of something meant to be bright and cheerful. -Abandoned Amusement Parks

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. -Edgar Allan Poe

The world thinks eccentricity in great things is genius, but in small things, only crazy. -Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

I'll give you another instance: you know how everybody's into weirdness right now?... A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything. Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness. -Tracey Walter "Miller", Repo Man

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead. -Mickey Rourke "Henry", Barfly

There is nothing about me. I exist only in the surface of what I create. I am slowly losing my mind. I am form over function. I am a hollow space with a shiny exterior - I can only reflect what I'm shown. I am mortified to be human and it upsets me greatly that, one ~ Rust Cohle True Detective

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

But never mind; faint heart never won true Friend. O Friend, may it come to pass, once, that when you are my Friend I may be yours. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. ~ O. Henry

O LAKE OF LIGHT" Risen from the milky sward I saw the one I love with flower And on her breast an unborn moon O wondrous moon! O lake of light! The grass so green is turning white O moon, O wondrous lake of light! Milk of fire upon her tongue Drew birds of jade and betel gum Run river run! The world of late grown small Now achieves its just dimension The one I love grown big with flower Wheels within the lunar hour Birds of jade in milky fire Mitigate the heart's desire Then run, river, run, as runs the sun For none are born except the one That lies upon the breast undone The moon unborn is chill as night The heart is like a lake of light Flower, moon, milk of fire These together do conspire Take wing, strange birds, take wing! - Henry Miller ~ Arthur Hoyle

In time truth and science and nature will adapt themselves to art. Things will happen logically, and the villain be discomfited instead of being elected to the board of directors. But in the meantime fiction must not only be divorced from fact, but must pay alimony and be awarded custody of the press despatches. ~ O. Henry

And he saw a youth approaching,
Dressed in garments green and yellow,
Coming through the purple twilight,
Through the splendor of the sunset;
Plumes of green bent o'er his forehead,
And his hair was soft and golden.
Standing at the open doorway,
Long he looked at Hiawatha,
Looked with pity and compassion
On his wasted form and features,
And, in accents like the sighing
Of the South-Wind in the tree-tops,
Said he, "O my Hiawatha!
All your prayers are heard in heaven,
For you pray not like the others,
Not for greater skill in hunting,
Not for greater craft in fishing,
Not for triumph in the battle,
Nor renown among the warriors,
But for profit of the people,
For advantage of the nations.
"From the Master of Life descending,
I, the friend of man, Mondamin,
Come to warn you and instruct you,
How by struggle and by labor
You shall gain what you have prayed for.
Rise up from your bed of branches,
Rise, O youth, and wrestle with me! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow