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Daily Inspiration Quote by Billy Bob Thornton

"Just the other day, my assistant was on the line with Calvin Klein. Golly, I usually shop at Sears"

About this Quote

A movie star name-drops Calvin Klein and then immediately retreats to Sears with a cartoonish "Golly" - and that whiplash is the whole point. Thornton is playing a familiar American double role: the celebrity who moves through elite spaces by default, and the self-styled regular guy who insists he doesn't belong there (or at least doesn't want you to think he does). The assistant "on the line" telegraphs fame as infrastructure, a world where even your errands are outsourced and routed through brands. Then comes the folksy correction, as if proximity to luxury needs to be washed off in public.

The joke works because it weaponizes sincerity. "Golly" isn't just a punchline; it's a performative innocence, a verbal flannel shirt. Thornton, long associated with Southern-inflected characters and a kind of scruffy authenticity, knows how easily audiences read "Hollywood" as contamination. So he offers a preemptive alibi: sure, Calvin Klein is calling, but don't worry - I'm still a Sears guy. It's humility as brand management, an attempt to keep cultural permission to be rich without seeming pretentious.

Context matters: actors are marketed as both aspirational and relatable, an impossible balancing act that forces them into ritual displays of normalcy. Thornton compresses that PR dance into two sentences, exposing the absurdity of trying to stay "down-home" while your assistant negotiates your relationship with fashion empires. The laugh lands because the contradiction isn't his alone; it's the entire celebrity economy's favorite disguise.

Quote Details

TopicWitty One-Liners
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Thornton, Billy Bob. (2026, January 16). Just the other day, my assistant was on the line with Calvin Klein. Golly, I usually shop at Sears. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/just-the-other-day-my-assistant-was-on-the-line-139505/

Chicago Style
Thornton, Billy Bob. "Just the other day, my assistant was on the line with Calvin Klein. Golly, I usually shop at Sears." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/just-the-other-day-my-assistant-was-on-the-line-139505/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Just the other day, my assistant was on the line with Calvin Klein. Golly, I usually shop at Sears." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/just-the-other-day-my-assistant-was-on-the-line-139505/. Accessed 5 Feb. 2026.

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Billy Bob Thornton (born August 4, 1955) is a Actor from USA.

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