"Hoodoo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spare propellers if we're going to smash into school towers," remarked Tom. "I seem to be a sort of hoodoo." ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... go to the Yellowstone river region—wanted specially to see the National Park, and the geysers and the "hoodoo" or goblin land of that country; indeed, hesitated a little at Pueblo, the turning point—wanted to thread the Veta pass—wanted to go over the Santa Fe trail away southwestward to New Mexico—but turn'd and set my face eastward—leaving behind me whetting glimpse-tastes of southeastern ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... [Capability of producing evil. Bad qualities.] Badness. — N. hurtfulness &c. Adj[obs3].; virulence. evil doer &c. 913; bane &c. 663; plague spot &c. (insalubrity) 657; evil star, ill wind; hoodoo; Jonah; snake in the grass, skeleton in the closet; amari aliquid[Lat][obs3], thorn in the side. malignity; malevolence &c. 907; tender mercies [ironically]. ill-treatment, annoyance, molestation, abuse, oppression, persecution, outrage; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Rain, that hoodoo of tennis, attempted to ruin the event for it fell steadily for the five days previous to the match. The court was a sea of mud on the morning scheduled, but the President desired play and the word went on "to ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... clenching his fists, while tears tried to get into his eyes. "You've got me to blame for this, Davy! It was all my doing. I insisted on dragging you down to that room, and now you've got to walk the plank, all because of my foolishness! Oh, I'm a hoodoo!" ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... in hoodoo and witches. Heard them talking lots about witches. They said if they found anybody was a witch they would kill them. Witches took on other forms and went out to do meaness. They said sometimes some of them got through latch ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... laboratory, you hoodoo," shrilled Berry, "or I swear I'll kill you! I'll not give you the chance to do ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia
... seats, and her curtains folded in her uppers, save and except in one single instance—Section Eleven, to conform to certain deeply held ideas of the porter, Raz Brown, as to what might and might not constitute a hoodoo, was made up. Raz Brown did not play much: he could not and hold his job; but when he did play he played eleven always whether it fell between seven, twenty-seven, or four, forty-four. And whenever Raz Brown deadheaded a car through, he always made up section eleven, and laid the hoodoo struggling ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... on the ways, ripping the scaffolding to pieces like a whale thrashing a raft apart. Suppose she careened and stuck or rolled over in the mud. Such things had happened and might happen again. The Mamise had suffered so many mishaps that the other ship crews called her a hoodoo. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... Brackett, "if you don't turn out a hoodoo, you're a winner, sure. But I'll be blessed if this don't sound like a story! But I've heard that story before. The man I got Black Boy from, no matter how I got him, you're too young to understand the ins and outs of poker, ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... lady's man an' thar's our pretty hoodoo over thar to feed an' amoose," remarked Shady Jones, with a smile ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... real feelings of the man. His practical sense soon returned, however, and he continued, "Now, Jameson, don't you think you could use a little influence with the newspaper men to keep this thing off the front pages? Of course something has to be printed about it. But we don't want to hoodoo the hotel right at the start. We had a suicide the other day who left an apologetic note that was played up by some of the papers. Now comes this affair. The management are just as anxious to have the crime cleared ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... callouses. I kicked the fire down to a nice bed of coals and then the coffee-pot upset and put it out. Ashes got into the bacon, and—Oh! you know how joyful it is to cook on a green fire when you're dead tired and your hoodoo's on vicious. ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... to put the hoodoo on me as they say down in your country, Happy. I was lying back there in the forest on the hill and the biggest and reddest-eyed owl that was ever born sat on a bough over head, and kept telling me that I was finished, right at the ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... my mind. I need to wear it so that I will be reminded of something—something important as a hoodoo," she said, with a ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... in my team. They had come hack. The hoodoo had vanished. The championship Worcester ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... out offices and going to work," Steve insisted. "If you want to break the hoodoo you have just brought on yourself by smashing up wedding cake—let me talk ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... known him But for the colored folk That here obtain And ne'er in vain That wizard's art invoke; For when the Eye that's Evil Would him and his'n damn, The negro's grief gets quick relief Of Hoodoo-Doctor Sam. With the caul of an alligator, The plume of an unborn loon, And the poison wrung From a serpent's tongue By the light ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... that you don't break your neck. Rupert says it's a hoodoo day. We don't want you in ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... States which have already sent in reminiscences of ex-slaves, Tennessee is the only one in which the workers are asking ex-slaves about their belief in signs, cures, hoodoo, etc. Also, the workers are requesting the ex-slaves to tell the stories that were current among the Negroes when they were growing up. Some of the best copy that has come in to the office is found in ...
— Slave Narratives, Administrative Files (A Folk History of - Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves) • Works Projects Administration
... do was to provide for them while in the region of timber; so we stopped, cut jack-oak, made it into lengths and stored them in the wagon until time and place were more opportune for wheel-wrighting. This broken wheel proved to be a hoodoo, as will appear at intervals during the story of the next ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... I must be a hoodoo, where women are concerned," he said, kicking the smoking stub of a bush into the blaze. "Soon as one crosses my trail, she goes and disappears off the face of the earth!" He fumbled for his tobacco and papers. It was a "dry camp" he was making that night, and a smoke ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... my hoodoo. To tetch one makes my flesh crawl like they was walking on my grave, and if little Mis' will permit of me, I wanter git back to see to the browning of my muffins ginst the time Mas' Cradd rars at me fer his supper," and without waiting for the consent ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... down, couldn't do nothin'. Someone got to telling her about Cain Robertson. Cain Robertson was a hoodoo doctor in Georgia. They there wasn't nothin' Cain couldn't do. She says, 'Go and see Cain and have him ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... but free, rich, married, they say, to some reputable man, whom may Heaven assist! and exercising among her ancient mates, the slaves of Cuba, an influence as unbounded as its reason is mysterious. Horrible rites, it is supposed, cement her empire: the rites of Hoodoo. Be that as it may, I would have you dismiss the thought of this incomparable witch; it is not from her that danger threatens us; and into her hands, I make bold to promise, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... missing men back. That will break the hoodoo, and the others will come back to work. Then we'll get on the trail of Waddington, or Blakeson & Grinder, and put a stop to this business. We know ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... "we are looking for Jackie and Peggs' motheranfather, and once when we were in India a Hoodoo ..." ...
— Kernel Cob And Little Miss Sweetclover • George Mitchel
... of hoodoo on these Antarctic expeditions, Wilson," said the city editor of The Daily Record to the star rewrite man. He glanced through the hastily typed report that had come through on the wireless set erected on the thirty-sixth story of the Record Building. "Tommy ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... not, however, to be dignified by the name "religion." It is superstition founded upon charms and hoodoos. It is witchcraft of the maddest kind, involving the most hideous performances. Moreover, it is said that a hoodoo is something of which a French negro is very much afraid, and that his fear is justifiable, for the reason that the throwing of a wanga, or curse, may also involve the administering of subtle ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... may be for a time, it is the fatal hoodoo of this 'most gentlemanly' way of making a living without earning it that a forgery is always discovered and the forger generally caught. That is because the forged check remains in existence and must be paid by some one, and sooner or later there will ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... witch hab done gwine wish a big hoodoo on me!" grunted the negro suspiciously. "Dis am do fust time dat de magernetto gwine back on me ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... loquacious and welcomed Barstow as the Ancient Mariner welcomed the wedding guest. He explained that he made but few trips a day and passengers were fewer than trips. The company kept it going to hold the franchise, for some day Wakefield would reach sixteen thousand and lift the hoodoo. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... street-corner or cross-road loungers. The negro he found to be superstitious, just as we find them to-day. Even educated negroes are apt to give credence to many stories which, on the face of them, appear ridiculous. The words "Hoodoo" and "Mascot" have a meaning among these people of which we have only a dim conception, and when sickness enters a family the aid of an alleged doctor, who is often a charlatan of the worst character, is apt to be sought. It will take several ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... says, that I'm plenty posted in advance that I'm up ag'inst a gen'ral shout of derision on account of me bein' sooperstitious, I'm yere to offer two to one Dave's hoodooed. Moreover, I can name the hoodoo.' ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... contributions made by the negroes to our stock of superstitions is that of the hoodoo or voodoo signs which are brought from Africa by the ancestors of the present colored people of America. On the arrival of the negro in America, his child like mind was readily receptive to the ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... excavators avoid the Texas treasury—and triumphant Populism take it for granted that 'twas on these curious disks that our "infant industry" cut its teeth. The "In God We Trust" inscription may be regarded as a barbaric hoodoo to prevent infantile bellyache or the evil eye, but the dollar mark will be entirely unintelligible to a people so many thousand years removed from the savage superstition of metallic money. Of course woman will have ruled the world so long that "tyrant man" will ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... telling us of some of the queer characters he has run across in that part of the country." Vernon paused, and then plunged in desperately. "He said you knew one old woman who was a wonder; a half-caste hoodoo-worker who brewed magic potions in a big pot, and knew all the legends of the countryside. 'Tia—' something, her name is. Do you know what has ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... are too gross to believe in poetic faiths, too respectable to tolerate the notion that the stable at Bethany was a common peasant farmer's stable instead of a first-rate racing one, and too savage to believe that anything can really cast out the devil of disease unless it be some terrifying hoodoo of tortures and stinks, the M.O.H. will no doubt for a long time to come have to preach to fools according to their folly, promising miracles, and threatening hideous personal consequences of neglect of by-laws and the like; therefore it will be important ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... a mine and was wishful to own one again. They laid up on the worn benches of the Silver Dollar or the Same Old Luck like beached vessels, and their talk ran on endlessly of "strike" and "contact" and "mother lode," and worked around to fights and hold-ups, villainy, haunts, and the hoodoo of the Minietta, ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... got stuck in the sand On the fiery edge of Jou-jou land; The Jou-jous they confiscated him, And the Jim-jam tore him limb from limb; But, dying, he said: "If eaten I am, I'll disagree with this Dam-jim-jam! He'll think his stomach's a Hoodoo's den!" Allah il ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... a turnip? On the strict Q.T., Why do my Trilbys get so ossified? Why am I minus when it's up to me To brace my Paris Pansy for a glide? Once more my hoodoo's thrown the game and scored A flock of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... the boardroom traders and plungers, together with many of the semi-professional gamblers, who operated through commission houses, were selling out their long stock and going short over the opening of the Wall Street hoodoo-day, Friday, the thirteenth of the month. But it was also evident, with the heavy selling at the close and the stiffness of the price, which had never wavered as block after block was thrown on the market, that some powerful interest as well had taken cognisance of the fact ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... before the Big Race, several unfortunate things happened in the Kennel to make Allan believe it was, as the "Wonder Workers" solemnly declared it, a "Hoodoo" year for the dogs. Rover wrenched his shoulder in a friendly tussle with one of the Mego pups, Tom cut his foot badly on a bit of broken glass, and Baldy developed a severe cold that made him feverish ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... ground and sold it for a song To see it yield a fortune to some fool that came along; That's sunk a dozen bed-rock holes, and not a speck in sight, Yet sees them take a million from the claims to left and right? Now aren't things like that enough to drive a man to booze? But Hard-Luck Smith was hoodoo-proof—he ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... been worth the money to me, what I've learned,' he said. 'I've got an education out of that old hoodoo that some men go through Tech and work twenty years without getting; I've learned a new wrinkle in every one of the building trades; I've learned men and I've learned law, and I've delivered the goods. It's been hell, but I wouldn't have ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... up before I had a chance," explained Georgina. "And I never could find the place again, although I've hunted and hunted. And I was sure it meant some sort of devil, and that it would come and punish me for using the Bible that way as if it were a hoodoo." ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... would you; bless me if he ain't got some white sheets, and a regular nightgown. Now, what dye think of that, fellows? Are we going to allow such sissy goings-on in this, our first camp? He'd hoodoo the whole business, sure. No luck with such baby play. Use the sheets for towels when we go in swimming; I've got an extra pair of pajamas along, that I'll lend him, if he promises to be a true scout, ready to rough and ready it in camp. ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... by the hardest of experiences, and so far as the crediting of statements is concerned, to at first believe everything that is not true, and reject most that is. The supernatural, the phenomena of alleged witchcraft and diabolism, and of "luck," "hoodoo," "fate," etc., find ready disciples among those who reject disdainfully the results of the working of natural law. When the railroads were first built across the plains the Indians repeatedly attempted to stop moving trains by holding the ends of a rope stretched across the track in front of the ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... helping us, and therefore, Brown is an enemy. Prob'ly they surmise Brown is in league with us to show us a short cut to what we're after. If that's how they work it out, then they wouldn't need think much to conclude that putting Brown on the blink would hoodoo us. Maybe they allow that that much bad luck to begin with would unsettle Brown's friendly feelings for us. Anyway—somebody bought the mules—somebody stole the cattle—cattle are somewhere ahead. Let's hurry ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy |
