Snake Oil Salesman Quotes

You could sell snake oil to a snake oil salesman." "I'm not sure that's how the saying goes." "I had to revise it to accurately reflect how good you are at your job.

First you make people believe they have a problem, and then you sell them the solution. That's how advertising works. Every snake oil salesman knows that.

Sometimes you make it sound like I'm a snake-oil salesman." I grab his arm. "That's not what I meant at all." "Then what do you mean?" he asks. "I mean that you're nice," I say. He laughs. "This again." "I mean," I say, more fervently, "you're probably the only person I've ever met who's genuinely curious about everyone he meets. And makes them feel interesting and welcome, and like–like they should be confident in what they do. You make them feel like growing corn or making cherry salsa or recommending books is a superpower." "If you're good at those things," he says, "It is.

Dusty will listen to you,” Charlie says. “You could sell snake oil to a snake oil salesman.” “I’m not sure that’s how the saying goes.” “I had to revise it to accurately reflect how good you are at your job.

Mallory uses a measured, concerned-mom voice rather than a snake-oil-salesman voice.

Let’s call him Pirelli, after the snake-oil salesman in Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.

In the late 1800’s a rather obnoxious windbag of politician became an artform on the American political scene. In an era of the soapbox and the campaign caboose car, men in pressed suits would flock to see characters with names like “Battlin’” Bob LaFollete, Eugene V. Debs, William Jennings Bryan, and Theodore Roosevelt with the same enthusiasm normally reserved for the revival preacher, carnival barker, or snake oil salesman. They would indict, convict, satire, and mock all the while slinging words few in their awestruck audiences comprehended. They would promise the stars, affirm prejudices, delivering a mountebankism, so seductive, their audiences were sure these men were messianic instead of the scoundrels they actually were. Most would walk away either sufficiently entertained, or believing that the illusory American Dream they craved was about to be delivered on a silver platter. Ultimately what they found was that these frauds were simply blowing through, like a torrential Florida rain, leaving nothing in their wake but a lot of work for the street sweepers.

don’t have twenty bucks to split, we’ll call it a day and the difference is on me. If we have at least that much, or more, then it is in our best interests to forge an accord,” he says, his voice overly formal. I can’t help but smile. He’s kind of a goofball, for all his model looks and snake-oil-salesman charm. He’s actually not as confident as he pretends, I can see now. Which makes me feel better and at the same time…is endearing. I give him my black-belt ninja-level eye roll, which has the power to destroy worlds. It has no effect. Damn him again for his superpowers. I’ll have to try something else. He interprets my silence as an opportunity to keep pitching the idea. “You’ve got nothing to lose. It’s risk-free.” A thought occurs to me. “What happened to your last partner?” His face grows serious. “I had to kill him and eat him. It was a long winter.” “He?” “Don’t look at me like that. He was actually quite tender after a couple of days. The secret’s in the marinade.” I find myself laughing against my will, and he joins me, the dimples back in full force. I so want to say no, just to do it, but I’m also thinking it couldn’t hurt to give it a try. If he’s right, it might be the first Monday ever that I clear more than twenty bucks. “Seriously. What happened?” His expression darkens for a nanosecond, and then he brightens again. “He didn’t make it south. Stayed in the old country.” He watches me expectantly. “So how about it?” “You have the cash to cover any shortfall?” “I’m toting

Hezekiah Pendergast,” Constance continued, “was the great-great-grandfather of Aloysius—and a first-rate mountebank. He began his career as a snake-oil salesman for traveling medicine shows and, over time, devised his own ‘medicine’: Hezekiah’s Compound Elixir and Glandular Restorative.

This is what I have been saying, especially about those people who were once partisan operatives and have become Never-Trumpers, and most especially those who speak now all the time about what a danger he is. I'm talking to you: Nicole Wallace, Michael Steele, Steven Schmidt, Kurt Bardella, Rick Wilson, can you own your part in where we are currently? Can you tell us how you helped get us here? Can you make clear how and what you sold people that led right to this snake oil salesman?

He used to be like a Snake Oil Salesman in the wild west hawking his wares in the town square as if at the carny. Branded tower condos. Steaks. Deodorant. Water. Vodka. Ostensible educations--those were pure scam. Sneakers. Playing cards. NFTs. Bibles. Swatches of his found-guilty suit. A Used Car salesman selling cars designed to run just long enough off the lot to get him the bucks and the battle win and plow down everyone around him. But now he's desperate, losing even his ability to coerce and con, which is the only ability he ever had.

his five-decade dictatorial control of the FBI to transform the agency into a vehicle for shielding organized crime, fortifying his corrupt political partners, oppressing Black Americans, surveilling his political enemies, suppressing free speech and dissent, and as a platform for building a cult of personality around his own inflated ego. More recently, Dr. Fauci’s perennial biographer, Charles Ortleb, analogized Dr. Fauci’s career and pathological mendacity to the sociopathic con men Bernie Madoff and Charles Ponzi.37 Another critic, author J. B. Handley, labeled Dr. Fauci “a snake oil salesman” and a “bigger medical charlatan than Rasputin.”38 Economist and author Peter Navarro, former Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, observed during a national network television interview in April 2021 that “Fauci is a sociopath and a liar.”39 His white lab coat, his official title, and his groaning bookshelves crowded with awards from his medical cartel collaborators allow Dr. Fauci to masquerade as a neutral, disinterested scientist and selfless public servant driven by a relentless commitment to public health. But Dr. Fauci doesn’t really do public health. By every metric, his fifty-year regime has been a catastrophe for American health. But as a businessman, his success has been boundless. In 2010, Dr. Fauci told adoring New Yorker writer Michael Specter that his go-to political playbook is Mario Puzo’s novel The Godfather.40 He spontaneously recited his favorite line from Puzo’s epic: “It’s nothing personal, it’s strictly business.

You could sell snake oil to a snake oil salesman.” “I’m not sure that’s how the saying goes.” “I had to revise it to accurately reflect how good you are at your job.