“
That's the only place in all the lands we've ever heard of that we don't want to see any closer; and that's the one place we're trying to get to! And that's just where we can't get, nohow.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings (The Lord of the Rings, #1-3))
“
In my mind, I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful white women with their arms stretched out to me over that line, but I can’t seem to get there no-how. I can't seem to get over that line.
”
”
Harriet Tubman
“
Don't take life so serious. It ain't nohow permanent.
”
”
Walt Kelly
“
When it don’t rain, the roof don’t leak; when it rains, I can’t fix it nohow.
”
”
Robert A. Heinlein (Methuselah's Children)
“
I ain't gonna worry wrinkles in my brow, cuz nothin's never gonna be alright nohow. No matter how I struggle and strive, I'll never get out of this world alive.
”
”
Hank Williams
“
If you think we're waxworks," he said, "you ought to pay, you know.Waxworks weren't made to be looked at for nothing. Nohow!"
"Contrariwise," added the one marked 'DEE', "if you think we're alive, you ought to speak.
”
”
Lewis Carroll (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass)
“
it don’t make no diference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience ain’t got no sense, and just goes for him anyway. If I had a yaller dog that didn’t know no more than a person’s conscience does I would pison him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person’s insides, and yet ain’t no good, nohow.
”
”
Mark Twain (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)
“
There ain't no harm in a hound, nohow.
”
”
Mark Twain (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)
“
Hold the old holding hand. Hold and be held. Plod on and never recede. Slowly with never a pause plod on and never recede.
”
”
Samuel Beckett (Nohow On: Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, Worstward Ho)
“
It didn't amount to a fart in a windstorm, nohow.
”
”
Ferrol Sams (The Whisper of the River (Porter Osborne Jr, #2))
“
You lean back against the door with bowed head making ready to set out. By the time you open your eyes your feet have disappeared and the skirt of your great coat come to rest on the surface of the snow. The dark scene seems lit from below. You see yourself at the last outset leaning against the door with closed eyes waiting for the word from you to go. To be gone.Then the snowlit scene. You lie in the dark with closed eyes and see yourself there as described making ready to strike out and away across the expanse of light. You hear again the click of the door pulled gently to and the silence before the steps can start. Next thing you are on your way across the white pasture afrolic with lambs in spring and strewn with red placantae.
”
”
Samuel Beckett (Nohow On: Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, Worstward Ho)
“
She shoved my shoulder. “I want you to note that there are still no aftereffects of surfing yesterday. No—how do you put it? —saltwater trauma.” “Well, that’s because you have beautiful magic Asian hair. Mine wouldn’t be as kind.” “Magic Asian hair?” “Don’t try to deny it.
”
”
Kasie West (The Fill-In Boyfriend)
“
She hated the old woman who had twisted her so in the name of love. Most humans didn’t love one another nohow, and this mislove was so strong that even common blood couldn’t overcome it all the time.
”
”
Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God)
“
I know what you’re thinking about,” said Tweedle-dum, “But it ain’t so, nohow.” “Contrariwise,” continued Tweedledee, “if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.
”
”
Lewis Carroll (Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, #2))
“
Seen no matter how and said as seen. Dread of black. Of white. Of void. Let her vanish. And the rest. For good.
”
”
Samuel Beckett (Nohow On: Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, Worstward Ho)
“
At any rate I'd better be getting out of the wood, for really its coming on very dark. Do you think it's going to rain?'
Tweedledum spread a large umbrella over himself and his brother, and looked up into it.
'No, I don't think it is,' he said: 'at least - not under here. Nohow.'
'But it may rain outside?'
'It may - if it chooses,' said Tweedledee: 'we've got no objection. Contrariwise.
”
”
Lewis Carroll (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass)
“
No, no, not in the law, it ain’t. Not in the end, I mean. When a man is dead, sense must be made of it; and it might as well be sense as serves the living, for it won’t serve the dead, nohow.
”
”
Francis Spufford (Golden Hill)
“
God's forgot that ever I lived... He's forgot...and He never cared, nohow...."
He smoothed her brown, rough-palmed hand; he held her hands to keep her from jerking herself away from his admonishing: "Oh, 'tis not true, the words yere a-sayin', Cean Smith; and well ye know it. Never does He forget a child o' His'n. 'Tis His children that forget that He is rememberin'. Get on yere knees and climb on them up to the shelter o' His arms. Knock on His ears with yere prayers. Creep into His arms, Cean Smith, and lay yere head on His bosom, and He'll hold ye closer than inny man ye ever love can ever hold ye. He'll lay His hand on yere head and ye'll stop yere restless fightin' against His will. He'll shut yere pitiful little mouth from complainin' against Him. Ye'll hush and be comforted...."
She dared him to prove his saying: "Then pray fer Him to do them things fer me!"
He prayed; and when he had finished, Cean's will was as water to God's will, and Cean's tears were softening and healing to her heart.
”
”
Caroline Miller (Lamb in His Bosom)
“
In a little wind-lull, Tea Cake touched Janie and said, ‘Ah reckon you wish now you had of stayed in yo’ big house ’way from such as dis, don’t yuh?’
‘Naw.’
‘Naw?’
‘Yeah, naw. People don't die till dey time come nohow, don't keer where you at. Ah’m wid mah husband in uh storm, dat’s all.’
‘Thanky, Ma’am. But ’sposing you wuz tuh die, now. You wouldn’t git mad at me for draggin’ yuh heah?’
‘Naw. We been tuhgether round two years. If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don’t keer if you die at dusk. It’s so many people never seen de light at all. Ah wuz fumblin’ round and God opened de door.’
He dropped to the floor and put his head in her lap. ‘Well then, Janie, you meant whut you didn’t say, ’cause Ah never knowed you wuz so satisfied wid me lak dat, Ah kinda thought—’
The wind came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the last time. They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.
”
”
Zora Neale Hurston
“
Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon—for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you—and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her. She hated the old woman who had twisted her so in the name of love. Most humans didn’t love one another nohow, and this mislove was so strong that even common blood couldn’t overcome it all the time. She had found a jewel down inside herself and she had wanted to walk where people could see her and gleam it around. But she had been set in the market-place to sell. Been set for still-bait. When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Then after that some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another, but the mud is deaf and dumb. Like all the other tumbling mud-balls, Janie had tried to show her shine.
”
”
Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God)
“
Ain't nothin' to a flat country nohow. A man jes naturally wear hisself plumb out a walkin' on a level 'thout ary downhill t' spell him. An' then look how much more there is of hit! Take forty acres o' flat now an' hit's jest a forty, but you take forty acres o' this here Ozark country an' God 'lmighty only knows how much 'twould be if hit war rolled out flat. 'Taint no wonder 't all, God rested when he made these here hills; he jes naturally had t' quit, fer he done his beatenest an' war plumb gin out.
”
”
Harold Bell Wright (The Shepherd of the Hills)
“
Isn’t he a lovely sight?” said Tweedledum. Alice couldn’t say honestly that he was. He had a tall red night-cap on, with a tassel, and he was lying crumpled up into a sort of untidy heap, and snoring loud—“fit to snore his head off!” as Tweedledum remarked. “I’m afraid he’ll catch cold with lying on the damp grass,” said Alice, who was a very thoughtful little girl. “He’s dreaming now,” said Tweedledee: “and what do you think he’s dreaming about?” Alice said “Nobody can guess that.” “Why, about you!” Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands triumphantly. “And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you’d be?” “Where I am now, of course,” said Alice. “Not you!” Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. “You’d be nowhere. Why, you’re only a sort of thing in his dream!” “If that there King was to wake,” added Tweedledum, “you’d go out—bang!—just like a candle!” “I shouldn’t!” Alice exclaimed indignantly. “Besides, if I’m only a sort of thing in his dream, what are you, I should like to know?” “Ditto,” said Tweedledum. “Ditto, ditto!” cried Tweedledee. He shouted this so loud that Alice couldn’t help saying, “Hush! You’ll be waking him, I’m afraid, if you make so much noise.” “Well, it’s no use your talking about waking him,” said Tweedledum, “when you’re only one of the things in his dream. You know very well you’re not real.” “I am real!” said Alice, and began to cry. “You won’t make yourself a bit realler by crying,” Tweedledee remarked: “there’s nothing to cry about.” “If I wasn’t real,” Alice said—half-laughing through her tears, it all seemed so ridiculous—“I shouldn’t be able to cry.” “I hope you don’t suppose those are real tears?” Tweedledum interrupted in a tone of great contempt. “I know they’re talking nonsense,” Alice thought to herself: “and it’s foolish to cry about it.” So she brushed away her tears, and went on as cheerfully as she could, “At any rate I’d better be getting out of the wood, for really it’s coming on very dark. Do you think it’s going to rain?” Tweedledum spread a large umbrella over himself and his brother, and looked up into it. “No, I don’t think it is,” he said: “at least—not under here. Nohow.” “But it may rain outside?” “It may—if it chooses,” said Tweedledee: “we’ve no objection. Contrariwise.
”
”
Lewis Carroll (Through the Looking-Glass)
“
Bowers dried his hands on his overalls and stepped inside the wagon. He returned with his shotgun. “And I aim to blow the top of your head off ef you try it,” Bowers said, breathing heavily. “That little innercent sheep don’t mean no harm to nobody. Sence we’re speakin’ plain, I don’t like you nohow. I don’t like the way you act; I don’t like the way you talk; I don’t like the way your face grows on you; I don’t like nothin’ about you, and ef I never see you agin it’ll be soon enough. You’d better go while I’m ca’m, for when I gits mad I breaks in two in the middle and flies both ways!” Panting
”
”
Caroline Lockhart (The Fighting Shepherdess)
“
That’s the one place in all the lands we’ve ever heard of that we don’t want to see any closer; and that’s the one place we’re trying to get to! And that’s just where we can’t get, nohow.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings)
“
I know what you are thinking about’, said Tweedledum: ‘but it isn’t so, nohow.’ ‘Contrariwise,’ continued Tweedledee, ‘if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be: but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.
”
”
Graham Priest (Logic: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions Book 29))
“
The dilemma is, as it is often said, correlation does not imply causation.5 The discovery of a predictive relationship between A and B does not mean one causes the other, not even indirectly. No way, nohow.
”
”
Eric Siegel (Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die)
“
So he is. So that faint uneasiness lost. That faint hope. To one with so few occasions to feel. So inapt to feel. Asking nothing better in so far as he can ask anything than to feel nothing. Is it desirable? No. Would he gain thereby in companionability? No. Then let him not be named H. Let him be again as he was. The hearer. Unnamable. You.
”
”
Samuel Beckett (Nohow On: Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, and Worstward Ho)
“
I know what you're thinking about,' said Tweedledum: 'but it isn't so, nohow.' 'Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, 'if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.
”
”
Anonymous
“
She hated her grandmother and had hidden it from herself all these years under a cloak of pity. She had been getting ready for her great journey to the horizons in search of people; it was important to all the world that she should find them and they find her. But she had been whipped like a cur dog, and run off down a back road after things. It was all according to the way you see things. Some people could look at a mud-puddle and see an ocean with ships. But Nanny belonged to that other kind that loved to deal in scraps. Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon—for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you—and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her. She hated the old woman who had twisted her so in the name of love. Most humans didn’t love one another nohow, and this mislove was so strong that even common blood couldn’t overcome it all the time. She had found a jewel down inside herself and she had wanted to walk where people could see her and gleam it around. But she had been set in the market-place to sell. Been set for still-bait.
”
”
Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God)
“
You can’t make me believe that thet machine has got the strength o’ seven hosses in it, nohow. It ain’t reasonable.
”
”
J.W. Duffield (Bert Wilson's Twin Cylinder Racer)
“
Did you get work?” he asked. “Not yet,” Phoebe said, brushing off the fact that the interviewer had insulted her down to muscle and bone. “I didn’t want that old job nohow. Dern it, Maydean. I told you not to mess with that mirror, didn’t I?” Twelve-year-old Maydean flounced. It took her whole body to do it. “How much money we got left, Phoebe? I’m hungry.” Phoebe didn’t want to think about money. Or buying food. Or where they were going to sleep that night. She reached up, adjusting the mirror. “We’ll eat when I get hungry.” “You never get hungry! And you’re never gonna get no job, either. You’re too
”
”
Jackie Weger (Finding Home)
“
Don't fool yourself," he said to me then, his face flush with wine and darkness, "you're not missing nothin'. Lives are rotten stories, y'know. Real stories, now, they usually got a plot to 'em. They start and they go on a bit and when they end they're over, unless the guy's got a series goin'. People's lives don't do that no-how, they just kinda wander around and ramble and go on and on. Nothin' ever finishes."
"People die," I said. "That's enough of a finish, I'd think."
Korbec made a loud sound. "Sure, but have you ever known anybody to die at the right time? No, don't happen that way. Some guys fall over before their lives have properly gotten started, some right in the middle of the best part. Others kinda linger on after everything is really over.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (This Tower of Ashes)
“
Gettin’ so’s a man can’t do a good deed ‘thout steppin’ on someone’s toes,” said Klaber, with a wry one-sided twist of his mouth that nearly passed for a grin. Hoxie tried a shrug again and failed. “Gov’ment’s got good-deed-doin’ sewed up tighter’n a drum,” he agreed. “You wanna tell me just what it was you did t’ Miss Perkle?” “Fixed her,” said Klaber. “That’s all. No different than if I’d found her hobblin’ around with a nail in her foot and pulled it out. That don’t bust no law.” “No,” Hoxie admitted. “That don’t. But this is more medical.” “Who says so?” demanded Klaber, with a stubborn outthrust of his lower lip. “I can’t see the difference.” “A nail in the foot is a nail in the foot,” said Hoxie. “And cancer is cancer.” “Phooey,” said Klaber, “Same thing, to my mind. Person gets a foreign body in ’em, causin’ discomfort, and you take it out. Can’t see any difference at all, nohow.” “There are certain medical-type ways of doin’ things,” said Hoxie. “You didn’t use even an accepted method, we hear tell. And that’s bad.” “You ain’t serious!” said Klaber, aghast. “You can’t be serious ! You mean t’tell me the medical profession can get a guy in bad for the law on both them counts? How can a guy infringe their territory enough to get called on practicin’ medicine without a license if the guy also gets called on for not doin’ what they do anyways?
”
”
Jack Sharkey (The Essential Jack Sharkey (Giants of Sci-Fi Collection Book 10))