damned if one does, and damned if one doesn't
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English
[edit]Adjective
[edit]damned if one does, and damned if one doesn't (not comparable)
- Alternative form of damned if one does and damned if one doesn't.
- 1976, Pauline Glen Winslow, The Brandenburg Hotel, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, →LCCN, act 1, section 3, pages 39 and 42:
- ‘The tr-ruth! You think you want the truth? What would you do with it if you got it?’ / He didn’t wait for an answer, but jumped to his feet with surprising agility, strode to the window, and turning his back to them stared out into the branches of the tree. / ‘Damned if I do,’ he growled, ‘and damned if I don’t.’ […] ‘[…] Pritchard wouldn’t stoop to it so they sent you to do the dirty work, is that it? The local Polizei are too delicate, send the SS! I should throw you out,’ he stormed. / Capricorn wondered if he were drunk, and looked at Snow. / ‘Why, I could tell you . . . .’ / Diener stopped, abruptly. The colour receded from his face. As the belligerence left, he looked older and tired. Slowly, he went back to his station at the window. / ‘Damned if I do, and damned if I don’t,’ he said again.
- 1989 December 5, Lisa A. Gray, “SGA President To Face Campus Disciplinary Hearing”, in Lisa A. Gray, editor, BCC Communicator, number 3, New York, N.Y.: Bronx Community College of The City University of New York, page 1, column 2:
- “I’m scared,” Ms. Ortiz told The Communicator. “Every day I keep thinking I have a hearing in two weeks. This situation could affect my entire future. But the charges are already on record. I can’t resign now; I’m damned if I do, and damned if I don’t, so I have to see this thing through to the end. I know I have not done anything wrong, so I am confident that I will be cleared of any wrongdoing.”
- 2008, Roxanne St. Claire, chapter 6, in Now You Die, New York, N.Y.: Pocket Star Books, →ISBN, page 107:
- “So now I’m damned if I do, and damned if I don’t,” she continued, leaning back as adrenaline slowly dissipated through her system, leaving her wiped out. “If I find out he’s guilty of murder, how is that protecting the man who just begged me to keep him safe?”