Crackerjack Quotes

God is a slick god. Temple Knows. She knows because of all the crackerjack miracles still to be seen on this ruined globe.

Soul is not even that Crackerjack prize that God and Satan scuffle over after the worms have all licked our bones. That's why, when we ponder--as sooner or later each of us must--exactly what we ought to be doing about our soul, religion is the wrong, if conventional, place to turn. Religion is little more than a transaction in which troubled people trade their souls for temporary and wholly illusionary psychological comfort--the old give-it-up-in-order-to-save-it routine. Religions lead us to believe that the soul is the ultimate family jewel and that in return for our mindless obedience, they can secure it for us in their vaults, or at least insure it against fire theft. They are mistaken.

I will never forget, one day [when I] was six years old and I was playing beside the road and this plantation owner drove up to me and stopped and asked me, `could I pick cotton.' I told him I didn't know and he said, `Yes, you can. I will give you things that you want from the commissary store,' and he named things like crackerjacks and sardines--and it was a huge list that he called off. So I picked the 30 pounds of cotton that week, but I found out what actually happened was he was trapping me into beginning the work I was to keep doing and I never did get out of his debt again. My parents tried so hard to do what they could to keep us in school, but school didn't last four months out of the year and most of the time we didn't have clothes to wear.

There was a time when Stone would have rated a platoon of crackerjack killers coming for him by land, sea and air. Those days apparently were over. A quartet of suits in a Cadillac on steroids was enough.

Mrs. Threadgoode pulled something out of the Cracker Jack box and all of a sudden her eyes lit up. “Oh Evelyn, look! Here’s my prize. It’s a little miniature chicken… just what I like!” and she held it out for her friend to see.

You really are a detective. I guess that badge didn't come out of a crackerjack box. Does that mean the handcuffs are real too?

Grandma did not pretend to be sorry; she said, “Poor Bertha,” but she said it with the humor she was a crackerjack at, as thin and full of play as fiddle wire, and she took much credit for not going in for that kind of second marriage. I quit thinking long ago that all old people came to rest from the things they were out for in their younger years. But that was what she wanted us to believe—“an old baba like me”—and accordingly we took her at her word to be old disinterested wisdom who had put by her vanity.

I looked enviously at the over-head bead Popov had been laying in the bleeder pipe. It was as nearly perfect as I ever saw. Popov was a crackerjack structural steel welder, as good as or better than any of the men I had learned from in the General Electric plant in Schenectady.

I want to hear her tell me about Quercus virginiana and Magnolia stellata and Syringa vulgaris in the way she did when she first came to my home, identifying the live oaks and the giant, starry trees and the lilacs with a scent that no perfumer has been able to match. She considered them God’s gifts, and I tolerated that. Whatever might be up there, he or she or it did a crackerjack job with trees and flowers.

Milly nodded absent-mindedly and stared into the fire. She was thinking now of Suse, busily bossing the candy and crackerjack making in the kitchen. Aye, Lord, it would be better never to have a girl child; they saw nothing but pain and trouble and work, and so many went wrong, or else married some good-for-nothing little feist when they were too little to know that kisses come easier than victuals and that a houseful of youngens comes easiest of all.

Sirin pointed to the hat. “Helm of Revelations,” she said, deadpan. “Eyes of True and Aching Clarity,” she added, indicating the glasses. “Now you’re just making stuff up,” Negret protested. “Obviously, though it’s interesting that it was magic glasses that clued you in rather than the invisibility cloak.” She grinned. “It’s fun. Look.” She took a pair of brown leather gloves from the pocket of her pants. “For you. Wildthorn’s Crackerjack Gauntlets, for Pickers of Locks and Creepers Through Windows Needing Nimble and Foxy Fingers.” She eyed the roof overhead, creaking under the weight of winter. “Also guaranteed to be useful when it’s cold.

She enjoyed making people smile. She always hoped to leave them thinking, What a crackerjack that girl is, what a sassy piece of work. By sassy, of course, she wanted them to mean “pert, smart, jaunty” rather than “insolent, rude, impudent.” Walking the line between the right kind of sassy and the wrong kind was tricky, but if you pulled it off, you would never leave them thinking, What a sad little crippled girl she is, with her little twisted leg and her little gnarled hand. This evening, she suspected that she’d crossed the line between the wrong and the right kinds of sassy, and in fact walked out of sassy altogether, leaving them feeling more pity than delight.

Language, for them, had become an inescapable labyrinth of non-meaning. I imagine it must feel like being lost at sea. So, yes, I want to go back. I want to forge ahead with the serum and—when I’m ready—inject that potion into Mrs. Ray’s old veins. I want to hear her tell me about Quercus virginiana and Magnolia stellata and Syringa vulgaris in the way she did when she first came to my home, identifying the live oaks and the giant, starry trees and the lilacs with a scent that no perfumer has been able to match. She considered them God’s gifts, and I tolerated that. Whatever might be up there, he or she or it did a crackerjack job with trees and flowers. But I don’t give a shit about the president or his big brother or, really, any man.

road and find this mystery man, nothing can stop him—not hunger, not cops, not vampires, not even Herman E. Calloway himself. “A crackerjack

who his father was. But she left a clue: posters of Herman E. Calloway and his famous band, the Dusky Devastators of the Depression!!!!!! Bud’s got an idea that those posters will lead him to his father. Once he decides to hit the road and find this mystery man, nothing can stop him—not hunger, not cops, not vampires, not even Herman E. Calloway himself. “A crackerjack read-aloud.

Oh, you need to get paid. I understand.” By this time I had walked around and jumped back into my truck. Luther had followed me outside and was looking at me through the window. He stuck his arm in and placed something in the front pocket of my T-shirt with a smile. He saw the box of cigars on the dashboard and grabbed them. ”Let me get one of these.” He said it like a little kid tearing into a crackerjack box, smiling from ear to ear as he took both the remaining cigars I had and handed me back an empty box. I tossed it onto the passenger seat. I had tried one the night they were given to me, but I wasn’t much of a tobacco smoker, so half of that one sat in my ashtray. Turned out they were Cubans, illegal to buy or even possess here in the States. Hand rolled on the thigh of a Latin Queen in the heat of the Caribbean sun, a man could still taste her sweat. Not meant to smoke as much as to savor, it's said a man is suppose to fellatio a fine cigar like horny prom queen on a silk bed. For me trying to smoke one was like trying to go-down on a hooker in the bathroom of speak-easy. So the sheriff was welcome to mine.

No congratulatory telegram, no party—just a one-sentence acknowledgment when Brennan bumped into him: “Hey, Walter, that’s a pretty nice thing you did winning that.” In retrospect, Brennan had to laugh: “Can you imagine! The academy award and he acted like it was a prize in a box of crackerjacks.” Actually, this was a typical Goldwyn ploy. He always worried that actors under contract would begin making demands after they became successful. When David Niven was assigned his first role on the Goldwyn lot, he arrived to find another young hopeful, Dana Andrews, dressed in the same outfit that Niven was to wear. When Niven asked what was going on, the perplexed Andrews could only say that Goldwyn had directed him to show up on set in the clothes provided for him. Goldwyn later confessed that he was sending a message to Niven: “You can be replaced!

Fine,” she said, “you win. Keep your relationship troubles to yourself. But I’m still going to tell you my ghost story when you come back with your coffee, crackerjack.” “I think I liked honky boy better,” I said.

Strap yourself into the jump-seat, make sure your harnesses are pulled really tightly, and let Scott ‘Sunshine’ Gibson give you the flight of your life. Join him as he meets up with some old and new comrades, Ryan ‘shut-eye’ Davis, Lawrence ‘sticky’ LaBelle, Jack ‘crackerjack’ McCleary, Carson ‘sleepy’ Sandmann, John Edward ‘long john’ Silver, and Sebastian ‘Atlas’ Williams, aboard a Beech 18, Boeing B-29 Superfortress, Boeing 314 Clipper, and a Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer and share in his adventures from Newfoundland to Mexico to Malaysia in the late 1960’s. Hang on to your hats boys. It’s time to fly. Extract from 'Short Finals

I heard this story of someone who does this in MLM. If he's talking to someone who is “cold”, he never, EVER starts by saying he's in “MLM” or network marketing. Instead, he talks about how unstable the economy and job market is. Then he discusses how pensions and government programs are unreliable and bankrupt. Next he suggests real financial security comes only from having a business. And if you lack experience, a franchise is ideal, since they usually offer support and a proven “paint by numbers” system. But franchises cost money and take time. So the next best thing is MLM—which can be done cheaply part time. And since most new MLM company's fail, it's best to join one that's been around a while, like his... See how that works?

And often it’s something relatively small that tips us over an edge we’ve been teetering on for some time.’ ‘Like Crackerjack.’ ‘Like Crackerjack.