When, late in the fall of her sixteenth year, Ned Currie went away to Cleveland where he hoped to get a place on a city newspaper and rise in the world, she wanted to go with him.
— from Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life by Sherwood Anderson

He said you never could know anything about a woman—not really.
— from The Spenders: A Tale of the Third Generation by Harry Leon Wilson

Our Mission is much smaller, but on New Year's Eve and during New Year's Day, when we have a continuous service from 12 o'clock midday to 9.30 P.M. , with an entire change of leaders and musicians each hour, I have seen your nominal Christian, the toper, the criminal, all so overcome by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit that social differences melted away and they knelt side by side at the mercy seat; we have seen fifty people enter 79 into covenant relations with God in that pivotal period of the year, and we have seen most of them keep the faith.
— from Twice-born Men in America or, The Psychology of Conversion as Seen by a Christian Psychologist in Rescue Mission Work by Harriet Earhart Monroe

He said you never could catch her tripping in her words, never—never; and he thinks, mother,” continued Nora, sparkling and blushing, “that I am a little like my grandmother.
— from Light O' the Morning: The Story of an Irish Girl by L. T. Meade

"I have seen your new comedy," she continued.
— from One Man's View by Leonard Merrick

Old Tipsy has got a big, old silver one, but he says you never can depend upon it in this damp place.
— from Trapped by Malays: A Tale of Bayonet and Kris by George Manville Fenn

For himself—all inner perturbations were charmed away by her tender concern for the bruised shoulder—a big bruise; she could feel it under his coat—and the look in her eyes while he told the story of Lance; not colouring it up, because of what he had said; yet not concealing its effect on himself.
— from Far to Seek A Romance of England and India by Maud Diver

He is never half shaven nor half shorn: you never can tell when he has had his hair cut, nor has he his clean-shirt days, and his days of foul linen.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 328, February, 1843 by Various

"How should you not?" cried the Assessor.
— from Under a Charm: A Novel. Vol. II by E. Werner

“Random shot, but it might hit something, you never can tell,” commented the doctor.
— from The Harvester by Gene Stratton-Porter