"I told you to get into pictures!" Heffy huffed.  "Not this nonsense."
Mariel spoke up.  "Look, Sid, someone has to provide the nonsense, now that you’ve been called to a higher art."
—Jeremy Edwards, The Pleasure Dial

An illustration from Lilliput Lyrics by William Brighty Rands and illustrated by Charles Robinson (1899).  The caption reads: "Nonsense Rhymes."

"The divine gift of purely nonsensical speech and action is in atrophy." —Edmund Crispin, The Case of the Gilded Fly

The night belongs to nonsense.

"I had no idea what she was talking about. But I was used to that. I love Adrienne madly, and when her eyes glimmer that way she can speak nonsense or Old Norse, and I won’t mind." —Jeremy Edwards, Spark My Moment

Jack. Oh, that’s nonsense, Algy. You never talk anything but nonsense.
Algernon. Nobody ever does.
—Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (via Jonathan Caws-Elwitt)

This just in from Jonathan Caws-Elwitt: Harry Secombe, having described a typical warm-up routine preceding the Goon Show proper: "After that lot of nonsense the real nonsense would begin [...]"

"Norman Lindsay’s The Magic Pudding [1918] establishes a nonsense tradition in Australia."  —Historical Dictionary of Children's Literature (via Jonathan Caws-Elwitt.)

"Nonsense is not a toy." —Jonathan Caws-Elwitt

According to my dictionary, "tommyrot" comes from "tommy" meaning "fool" and "rot," of course, meaning "nonsense."  So tommyrot is a high-grade, real fool's nonsense, and not just any old generic, amateur nonsense.  Similarly, I suppose, "tomfoolery" would be first-class fool's foolery, as distinct from your basic layperson's foolery. —Jonathan Caws-Elwitt

Says lyricist Howard Dietz, "I bought two ... speed boats, one with a top to ward off the rain, and one without.  They were called 'Stuff' and 'Nonsense.'  'Nonsense' had been owned by Fred Astaire."

Jonathan Caws-Elwitt notes: "Nonsense" was presumably Astaire's name for the boat (which Dietz presumably built on in dubbing "Stuff" thusly)--because it's considered bad luck, isn't it, to rechristen a boat?  I mean, how could it not be 'bad luck' to rechristen a boat?  Pretty much everything is 'bad luck' to the nautical mind, unless it's one of the very specific things deemed to be 'good luck.'

"A theory that is marginally nonsensical will always perform well against complete and utter nonsense."

The House of Nonsense, via Jonathan Caws-Elwitt

"Wikipedia recognizes eleven genres of literature.  Not only are 'erotic' and 'nonsense' among them, but they're listed side by side.  Suddenly I feel very validated as a writer, haha." —Jonathan Caws-Elwitt

"Of course it is nonsense, but I am defensive about it and insist on exposing it to others. Surely it is very important nonsense for me." —Bob Neale, Wondering for Magicians

"Thank goodness it's never too early for nonsense." —Kathleen Bradean, via Jonathan Caws-Elwitt

See Jonathan Allen's A Bad Case of Animal Nonsense.

"Nonsense is, technically, done a disservice by its own name.  After all, nonsense is so much more than the absence or even antithesis of sense. It is the presence of superlative silliness!  That said, I love the word 'nonsense' in its own right, and wouldn't want to see it changed." —literary scalawag Jonathan Caws-Elwitt

"Nobody, of course, who enjoyed the pleasure of intimacy with him, expected him to talk anything but nonsense, but he need not, she felt, have descended to such utter nonsense, as that of which he had been guilty last night." —P. G. Wodehouse, Spring Fever, via Jonathan Caws-Elwitt