O Henry Memorial Quotes

“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, The Complete Stories of Truman Capote

“She was a good Christian woman with a large respect for religion, though she did not, of course, believe any of it was true.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories

“Wesley, the younger child, had had rheumatic fever when he was seven and Mrs. May thought this was what had caused him to be an intellectual.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories

“Mrs. May winced. She thought the word Jesus should be kept inside the church building like other words inside the bedroom.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories

“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, Beautiful Girl: Stories

“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, Disappearing Ingenue

“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, Prize Stories 2000: The O. Henry Awards