Righteous Quotes

“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

“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

“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

“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

“If there were ever two words that had no meaning they were moving on. 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

“He was happy because he knew he was going to die.”
― Joe Ide, Righteous

“tibia.”
― Joe Ide, Righteous

“As the years rolled by, Tommy didn’t talk about the debt anymore but it was implicit that Ken could never quit. He had the affair with Angela, and Sarita entered his life. Then he married a stewardess from Hong Kong, and Janine was born. The stewardess missed her family and went back home to Hong Kong, thank God, and now he was a very wealthy pimp under a death sentence, locked in his own bedroom, afraid for his daughter’s life but more afraid of climbing down a drainpipe.”
― Joe Ide, Righteous

“Ain’t no refunds up in here,” she said. “The hell you think this is, Walmart? You bought it, you eat it.” Another customer complained that the mac and cheese was too greasy. “Cheese is grease,” she said, like he was a moron. “The macaroni don’t do nothin’ but hold the grease—what? Yeah, you write a bad review and see if I don’t come lookin’ for your ass.” Which the guy quoted word for word on Yelp.”
― Joe Ide, Righteous

“Isaiah wasn’t a fan of rap to begin with but this had accordions and trumpets in it and sounded like some pissed-off Mexicans shouting over a polka band.”
― Joe Ide, Righteous

“Americans liked to say the Chinese were like that as if brutality was a cultural characteristic instead of a characteristic of the destitute; people who have to fight for every morsel, drop, bite, breath. People did such things everywhere, not just in the third world. It was happening in America, where poverty wasn’t an excuse. Teenagers set fire to homeless people, soldiers raped their subordinates, guards let prisoners out of their cells to kill other prisoners, police shot the mentally ill. It wouldn’t be long before they were eating their Labradoodles and throwing their unwanted children off the Bay Bridge. Yes, Americans should mind their own business, clean their own house.”
― Joe Ide, Righteous

“As the choir went by, he saw a girl who made him blink a couple of times. Head erect, a posture like she knew who she was, a passionate face and you knew there was a body underneath that robe. She moved through the light from the stained-glass windows, now gold, no red, now blue, like heaven's police car was pulling her over for being too fine. (178)”
― Joe Ide, Righteous

“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

“Marcus used to say when you’re stuck and you feel like there’s no way forward, go the other way. Go back to the beginning.”
― Joe Ide, Righteous

“The pressure of being with her was like a test of personality and social skills.”
― Joe Ide, Righteous

“She moved through the light from the stained-glass windows, now gold, now red, now blue, like heaven’s police car was pulling her over for being too fine. The”
― Joe Ide, Righteous