Joe Ide > Quotes

“It’s a hustler’s world, son,” Dodson said, “and if you ain’t doing the hustlin’? Somebody’s hustlin’ you.”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“Isaiah went on explaining like a college professor talking to a not very bright middle school student:”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“All right,” she said. “Inductive reasoning. It’s what those so-called detectives on CSI, SVU, LMNOP and all the rest of them call deductive reasoning, which is wrong and they should know better. It’s inductive reasoning, a tool you will use frequently in geometry as well as calculus and trigonometry, assuming you get that far and that certainly won’t be you, Jacquon. Stop messing with that girl’s hair and pay attention. Your grade on that last test was so low I had to write it on the bottom of my shoe.” Mrs. Washington glared at Jacquon until his face melted. She began again: “Inductive reasoning is reasoning to the most likely explanation. It begins with one or more observations, and from those observations we come to a conclusion that seems to make sense. All right. An example: Jacquon was walking home from school and somebody hit him on the head with a brick twenty-five times. Mrs. Washington and her husband, Wendell, are the suspects. Mrs. Washington is five feet three, a hundred and ten pounds, and teaches school. Wendell is six-two, two-fifty, and works at a warehouse. So who would you say is the more likely culprit?” Isaiah and the rest of the class said Wendell. “Why?” Mrs. Washington said. “Because Mrs. Washington may have wanted to hit Jacquon with a brick twenty-five times but she isn’t big or strong enough. Seems reasonable given the facts at hand, but here’s where inductive reasoning can lead you astray. You might not have all the facts. Such as Wendell is an accountant at the warehouse who exercises by getting out of bed in the morning, and before Mrs. Washington was a schoolteacher she was on the wrestling team at San Diego State in the hundred-and-five-to-hundred-and-sixteen-pound weight class and would have won her division if that blond girl from Cal Northridge hadn’t stuck a thumb in her eye. Jacquon, I know your mother and if I tell her about your behavior she will beat you ’til your name is Jesus.” The”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“A customer came in, the only one in the last couple of hours. The man had the shakes and was looking around like he’d lost a child at the county fair. He was a regular, somewhere between forty and sixty, his face sagging like Auntie May’s basset hound, his eyes yellow and bloodshot from seeing too much of his own life.”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“Let me give you some advice, son. Don’t never front with a woman. Be who you are, and if you ain’t sure, be not sure. They way ahead of us anyway. Don’t matter what you do, they’ll find out your true shit sooner or later.”
― Joe Ide, Righteous

“Repercussions will manifest beyond your ability to cope.”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“All right,” she said. “Inductive reasoning. It’s what those so-called detectives on CSI, SVU, LMNOP and all the rest of them call deductive reasoning, which is wrong and they should know better. It’s inductive reasoning, a tool you will use frequently in geometry as well as calculus and trigonometry, assuming you get that far and that certainly won’t be you, Jacquon. Stop messing with that girl’s hair and pay attention. Your grade on that last test was so low I had to write it on the bottom of my shoe.” Mrs. Washington glared at Jacquon until his face melted. She began again: “Inductive reasoning is reasoning to the most likely explanation. It begins with one or more observations, and from those observations we come to a conclusion that seems to make sense. All right. An example: Jacquon was walking home from school and somebody hit him on the head with a brick twenty-five times. Mrs. Washington and her husband, Wendell, are the suspects. Mrs. Washington is five feet three, a hundred and ten pounds, and teaches school. Wendell is six-two, two-fifty, and works at a warehouse. So who would you say is the more likely culprit?” Isaiah”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“You’re on a fool’s journey, Mr. Quintabe,” Bobby said. “That’s okay. I’ve been a fool before.” As”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“When Isaiah was in his teens, he worked for Harry Haldeman and wondered even then how the man could stay in a state of perpetual indignation; his fierce dark eyes glaring through the Coke-bottle bifocals resting on his great beak of a nose, his snow-white hair sticking up like a toilet brush. Isaiah thought he looked like an orchestra conductor. Harry’s wife, Louise, said he looked like an eagle wearing glasses. “Pit”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“What Mariah Carey should be telling them is to follow their abilities and make a dream out of what God gave them.” Marcus smiled that big sunny smile and saw the future in Isaiah’s eyes. “God gave you wings so you could fly up that pathway to the very top,” he said. “That’s where the best dreams are.” Isaiah”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“He’d never experienced hate before. It was like an ulcer growing on a tumor, festering and stinking. Late at night or between dreams and sleep, he’d get into it, bathing in the venom, wallowing in thoughts of revenge. In a way, the hate felt good. You were righteous, godlike, the dispenser of justice. Hate dispelled your fears and forged every disappointment, setback, loss, humiliation, and failure that ever happened to you into one massive steel sledgehammer of rage, poised to obliterate, and for one brief, purifying moment, give you relief.”
― Joe Ide, Righteous

“Jacquon, I know your mother and if I tell her about your behavior she will beat you ’til your name is Jesus.”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“Thank you, Anthony,” Dodson said. “Isaiah cogitates best when there are no distractions.” “What’s”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“Then they have a son that’s dumber than a box of hair, he gets married and has kids that play hide-and-seek in the rosebushes.”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“Burnout is very real. I see it in my practice on a daily basis. Men and women from every age and walk of life are so overwhelmed they can hardly function.” “Maybe they’re just working too hard.” “A common misconception. A person can suffer from burnout even if they’re a couch potato. You can burn out from being idle just like you can burn out from success. The common denominator is prolonged frustration.” “Spinning your wheels.” “Exactly. The feeling that no matter what you do you’re in the same place as you were yesterday. That there’s simply no reason to continue because you’d still be sunk in the same mire, running on the same treadmill, dancing the same tired dance. The housewife, the cop, the slacker, or the business tycoon can all suffer from burnout.” Cal”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“Sorrow isn’t a place you can leave behind. It’s part of you. It changes the way you see, feel, and think, and every once in a while, the pain isn’t remembered, it’s relived; the anguish as real and heartbreaking as if it was happening all over again.”
― Joe Ide, Righteous

“The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected. I believe it was your Robert Frost who said that. I once took a class on American poets. A bit too optimistic and sentimental for my tastes.”
― Joe Ide, Righteous

“Isaiah told him what he’d found on the Ruby’s Real Beauty website. Ruby’s stocked the largest, most complete inventory of human hair extensions in the South Bay area. The most highly prized were Virgin Remy. “Virgin because the girl still had her cherry?” Dodson said. “No. Virgin because the hair wasn’t chemically treated,” Isaiah said. “What’s Remy mean?” “It means the hair was carefully cut so the cuticles and roots stayed in the same direction. Otherwise, they mow it down like weeds and throw it in a bin.” Isaiah”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“On the SB5 Stanford-Binet intelligence test Isaiah’s reasoning scores were near genius levels. His abilities came naturally but were honed in his math classes. He was formally introduced to inductive reasoning in geometry, a tenth-grade subject he took in the eighth. His teacher, Mrs. Washington, was a severe woman who looked to be all gristle underneath her brightly colored pantsuits. Lavender, Kelly green, peach. She talked to the class like somebody had tricked her into it. “All”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“Gilberto handled the drone like his own personal falcon. It did everything but kill a pigeon, land on a treetop and eat the thing for lunch.”
― Joe Ide, Smoke

“picked this up at Skip’s place,” the kid said. He showed Bobby a bullet. It looked like a regular .45-caliber round but the bullet was blunter. “This is a multiple-impact round. When you fire the gun, the bullet breaks into three fragments held together with strings of Kevlar. The fragments come at you spinning like a South American bolo and they hit with a fourteen-inch spread. In other words, I could shoot at you, miss by thirteen inches, and still blow your brains out. Now I don’t know if that verifies Skip as a hit man but it verifies him as something.” Bobby looked like he’d opened his safe and found a head of cabbage. Hegan turned away to hide his smile. “Any questions?” the short guy said. The kid lifted his head. “Something’s burning.” Earlier”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“You lucky you got skills, son, ’cause if you had to survive on your personality you’d be working at the morgue with dead people.”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“My name is Isaiah,” Isaiah said. Bug held his meaty paw in the shape of a handgun, shooting it for emphasis. “Well, I’m gonna tell you straight up,” he said. “You might be something in Long Beach but you ain’t shit up in here. Get disrespectful and your shit is over, you feel me? Cal’s my nigga. You fuck this up and oh my GOD I’ll put a hurtin’ on you.” Isaiah looked at him like he’d come to the door selling five-dollar candy bars you could buy at the store for a dollar. He hated threats. Some asshole like Bug demanding respect as if bullying was a quality to admire like wisdom or kindness. “What?”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“Nestor wondered why the guy didn't stay around & be a hero.....Nestor would have to find him & thank him personally. A black guy who shot grenades couldn't be too hard to find.”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“Come on in,” he said without getting up. “I’m Ed Blevins. Please, sit-sit, we’re not formal around here. Let me guess. You’re here about the stolen presents. It’s Mrs. Jenkins, isn’t it? And you are—” “A”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“Isaiah lifted his head. “Somebody’s here.” They stepped behind the door as a sleepy-eyed buck-naked white girl clumped past in the hall, her booty like a backpack that had slipped down too low. “Bug?” she said. They left while she was in the bathroom. Back”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“You can blame your teenagers for that,” Harry said. “It’s Murphy’s other law. Anything that involves a teenager will be a goddamn horror show.”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“The brown apartment building was L-shaped. All the doors were facing in, big white patches where the paint had chipped off the stucco. Laundry was draped over the second-story railing, an overflowing dumpster in the parking lot. Isaiah parked the Explorer facing the sun so you couldn’t see him through the glare of the windshield. Women sat outside their doors talking.”
― Joe Ide, IQ

“Rebecca told her, “Trust requires practice, and in those terms you’re a lazy bum.”
― Joe Ide, Hi Five

“Maybe stepping out of his isolated life wasn't such a good idea after all. People, it turned out, were a big pain in the ass.”
― Joe Ide, Righteous