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I see the game now. You can't write with ink, and you can't write with your own heart's blood, but you can write with the heart's blood of some one else. You have to be a cad before you can be an artist. O’Henry 'The Plutonian Fire' (1905)

I see the game now. You can't write with ink, and you can't write with your own heart's blood, but you can write with the heart's blood of some one else. You have to be a cad before you can be an artist. O’Henry 'The Plutonian Fire' (1905)

Approximate author period: c. 1886 AD · industrial

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
O. Henry
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1886 AD · industrial
Approximate period for the recorded attribution to O. Henry, based on documented lifetime 1862 to 1910. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q172788 (checked 2026-10-08). This is not a quotation composition date or independent authentication of its attribution. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q172788 (accessed 2026-10-08).
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 281461; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.