There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn't give a damn what goes on in between.

-Beecham, SirThomas
Quoted in Harold  Atkins and  Archie Newman Beecham Stories (1978).

Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead.

-Farragut, David Glasgow
   At the Battle of Mobile Bay, 5  Aug. Quoted in  A  T Mahan Great Commanders:  Admiral Farragut (1892), ch.10.

Les femmes aiment fort a'   sauver qui les perd. Women love to save those who damn them.

-Hugo,Victor Marie
  Ruy Blas, act1, sc.4.

It's not true that life is one damn thing after anotheröit's one damn thing over and over.

-Millay, Edna St Vincent
  Letter to  Arthur Davison Ficke, 24 Oct.

   What is broken is broken, and I'd rather remember it as it was at its bestthanmend it and seebrokenplaces as long as I lived† I wish I could care what you do or where you go, but I can't. My dear, I don't give a damn.

-Mitchell, Margaret
  RhettButler's parting speech to Scarlett O'Hara. Gone  with the Wind, ch.63; the more famous version of the final line from the film script by Sidney Howard (1939, spoken by Clark Gable) ran'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn'.

You wags that judge by rote, and damn by rule.

-Otway,Thomas
  Titus and Berenice, prologue.

Thething isit'sreally hard tobe room-mateswith people if your suitcases are much better than theirsöif yours are really good and theirs aren't.You think if they're intelligent and all, the other person, and have a good sense of humour, that they don't give a damn whose suitcases are better, but they do.

-Salinger,J(erome) D(avid)
The Catcher in the Rye, ch.15.

'Damn you!' 'You need not. I feel among the damned already.'

-Shaw, George Bernard
  Sir George Crofts andVivieWarren. MrsWarren's Profession, act 3.