94 Quotes About New Orlean

Damn. I never should have agreed to this. What is he thinking? Here we are in a piece of crap pickup truck on our way to sit outside of a supermarket to kidnap this girl. Damn. He’d better not be falling for her. Sure she’s cute, but I can’t think about that. JennaLynne Duncan

She was evil. Couldn't he, who killed demons with his own hands, realize that? And now I had to run for Mardi Gras Queen because of him. Or her. I didn't know whose fault it was but there was no way I could back down now. JennaLynne Duncan

Times are not good here. The city is crumbling into ashes. It has been buried under taxes and frauds and maladministrations so that it has become a study for archaeologists...but it is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes than to own the whole state of Ohio. Lafcadio Hearn

If New Orleans is not fully in the mainstream of culture, neither is it fully in the mainstream of time. Lacking a well-defined present, it lives somewhere between its past and its future, as if uncertain whether to advance or to retreat. Perhaps it is its perpetual ambivalence that is its secret charm. Somewhere between Preservation Hall and the Superdome, between voodoo and cybernetics, New Orleans listens eagerly to the seductive promises of the future but keeps at least one foot firmly planted in its history, and in the end, conforms, like an artist, not to the world but to its own inner being--ever mindful of its personal style. . Tom Robbins

White folks have controlled New Orleans with money and guns, black folks have controlled it with magic and music, and although there has been a steady undercurrent of mutual admiration, an intermingling of cultures unheard of in any other American city, South or North; although there has prevailed a most joyous and fascinating interface, black anger and white fear has persisted, providing the ongoing, ostensibly integrated fete champetre with volatile and sometimes violent idiosyncrasies. Tom Robbins

My places were emotional, primarily. I wrote of locales in which I had lived, or in which I imagined I could live, but the topography was primal and sexual and terminal. It bore no distinct architecture or design or dialect. It was merely human and in peril, which is to say universal. But on Royal and Coliseum and Vista--streets I cannot relinquish-- I found my places and I dreamed a narrative. Can I go there and find it again?"-- Tennessee Williams . James Grissom

It is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future. History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. Mitch Landrieu

The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered. Mitch Landrieu

There are only two things: love, all sorts of love, with pretty girls, and the music of New Orleans or Duke Ellington. Everything else ought to go, because everything else is ugly. Boris Vian

Mac Rebennack, better known as Dr. John, once told me that when a brass band plays at a small club back up in one of the neighborhoods, it's as if the audience--dancing, singing to the refrains, laughing--is part of the band. They are two parts of the same thing. The dancers interpret, or it might be better to say literally embody, the sounds of the band, answering the instruments. Since everyone is listening to different parts of the music--she to the trumpet melody, he to the bass drum, she to the trombone--the audience is a working model in three dimensions of the music, a synesthesic transformation of materials. And of course the band is also watching the dancers, and getting ideas from the dancers' gestures. The relationship between band and audience is in that sense like the relationship between two lovers making love, where cause and effect becomes very hard to see, even impossible to call by its right name; one is literally getting down, as in particle physics, to some root stratum where one is freed from the lockstop of time itself, where time might even run backward, or sideways, and something eternal and transcendent is accessed. . Tom Piazza

The wild notes of tuba and trumpet and trombone rattled and hummed through the trees. In the first group of musicians, there were kids as young as fourteen playing the tuba and one kid who probably couldn’t drive banging a bass drum. They stomped together in rhythm to the music. Two ladies had dressed up in what looked like princess outfits. They wore white gloves and socks with tassels. Hunter Murphy

He turned around to see the bass drum popping and the horn sections pointing their instruments to the balconies and sending glorious notes to the rooftops. Hunter Murphy

A good crowd had formed along the sidewalk and the concrete ledge that bordered Louis Armstrong Park. The anticipation was dizzying... New Orleans had the big-boy parades and [Jackson & Billy] couldn't wait to attend a second line... Hunter Murphy

You're asking for trouble, woman." At the gruff tone of his voice, I raised my head and met his dark, chocolate-brown eyes, rimmed by long lashes that didn't take an ounce away from his masculinity. I wanted to drown in those eyes." I like trouble, remember? Suzanne Johnson

She shook her head. "I can't believe you got bit and you didn't even get an orgasm out of it. I guess True Blood isn't true after all. Suzanne Johnson

When I see you, Jolie, I see a woman who is far more than she realizes but who will someday grow into her powers. One who is much stronger than those who would trap her inside their cages or try to put her to harness. One with a bold intelligence, with whom I can laugh. One who surprises me." He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was so soft I had to strain to hear. "I see a woman who makes me feel alive again, like a man, and not like a wraith who has lived beyond his usefulness in a world that no longer needs him. Suzanne Johnson

Then I shall tell you the truthful answers to the questions you asked, about my own intentions and motivations. They are not so simple."... He cocked an eyebrow and his cobalt eyes took on a playful sparkle." If I were to avow that you are my immortal life's great passion, that I would give up immortality itself to be at your side and in your bed, you would not believe me, n'est-ce pas? Suzanne Johnson

I didn't dare put down the staff with Etienne popping in and out like a half-burned, bloodsucking whack-a-mole. Suzanne Johnson

He pulled out handcuffs and snapped them around my wrists. "Where's your bag? You didn't bring your staff?"" I have it. It's hidden." Charlie was currently tucked inside the leg of my Harry Potter pajama bottoms, which were beneath my jeans, but that fell under the category of TMI. Suzanne Johnson

We walked the length of Jackson Square, stopping to look at the work of a couple of artists who'd set up their sidewalk shops for the day." Look." Eugenie stopped in front of an acrylic painting of a mustached man with curly dark hair, hooded eyes, and a big hooked nose. He looked like he'd steal the hubcaps off your grandmother's Cadillac."It's Jean Lafitte, our most famous pirate, " the artist said. "He was quite a character." She had no idea. She also had badly missed the mark on his looks. His hair wasn't that curly, he'd been clean-shaven the whole time I'd known him, his nose was straight and in perfect proportion to the rest of his features, and he didn't have hooded black eyes. Still, he might find it entertaining. "How much?" I asked. . Suzanne Johnson

Alex leaned over and treated me to a Rhett Butler kiss, slow and deep but not too sweet. He once told Scarlett something to the effect of how badly she needed kissing, and by someone who knew what he was doing. Alex knew what he was doing. By the time he finished proving it, I was breathless. I rested my head on his shoulder, basking in his warmth and filling my lungs with his scent. "What was that for?"" That was to show you how glad I am that we got out of that mess in one piece and that we're here together." He extracted his arm from around my shoulders and sat back. "Now let's talk about your crazy stunt." Damn it, Rhett did that, too. He'd kiss Scarlett silly, then lecture her. Suzanne Johnson

He’s violent and unpredictable. He hit you once-hard. Oh, sure he saved your life later but it was in his beat interests. Plus, you have absolutely no common sense where he is concerned, and we won’t even mention the dead thing. Suzanne Johnson

DJ, are you awake? Freaking elf. “Go home, Rand.” I am home. Where are you? I frowned and burrowed my face into the soft down pillow. Which wasn’t my pillow. Holy crap. What had happened? I sat up and took in several observations at once, none of which made sense and all of which sent my heart rate jack-rabbiting hard enough to send my blood pressure into the ozone. First, I was lying beneath a heavy bedspread woven in a rich blue-and-cream print. The bed was an elaborate confection made to look like an antique half-tester, and a brass chandelier hung overhead. I recognized the Hotel Monteleone. I recognized Jean Lafitte’s bedroom in the posh Eudora Welty Suite in the Monteleone. I didn’t have a clue as to how I got here. Second, I wore only underwear. My clothes were thrown across a chair in the corner. I had no recollection of removing them. Third, the pillow next to mine still held the clear indentation of a head, and there was water running behind the closed bathroom door. What in God’s name had I done? Rand! Where are you? So help me, if that elf was behind this, I’d splay him open like a catfish and watch his guts fall on the floor. Then I’d batter and deep-fry him. God, Dru. Stop shrieking like an elven shrew. I think you got too cold and went into a survival state. Suzanne Johnson

Eugenie looked great, her short spiky auburn hair edged with conservative blond tips and her face wearing a minimum of makeup. Must be Mr. Natural’s influence. I gave her a hug and turned to meet Quince, who was sitting across from her. Okay, I could see the attraction. He had thick, honey-blond hair pulled back in a ponytail not unlike my own, and a green gemstone stud in one ear. He reached out a grasped my hand, shaking it firmly. “It’s great to meet you. Eugenie talks about you all the time.”“ She talks a lot about you too, Quince.” The man had no idea. He smiled and his blue-green eyes were almost enthralling. “Most people call me Rand, but Eugenie likes my real name better than my nickname.” After a half hour of small talk, I wasn’t sure I liked Quince Randolph. He was drop-dead gorgeous, no question about that. But there was something off about him I couldn’t quite pinpoint. He stared too hard when he talked to you, made my eye contact than a normal person. I tried to dig into his head a little but came up blank, which was weird, except I’d done a heavy grounding ritual this morning.“ You know, I just noticed something.” Eugenie had a funny look on her face. “You guys have the same hair and eye colo. I’d never realized it till I saw you sitting there across from each other.”“ Maybe we’re very distantly related.” Rand smiled.“ I doubt it, ” I said, frowning. “I don’t have much family. And if we were related, I’d be pissed off that you have better cheekbones. . Suzanne Johnson

Strong hands slipped over her shoulders as Alex joined us, standing so close, I could feel his body heat radiating up my back…. He squeezed my shoulders a little hard for it to be a show of solidarity. I’d probably have bruises. He was marking his territory. Suzanne Johnson

I talked to Zrakovi this afternoon, ” Alex said, giving me an undecipherable look. “He’s putting me back on sentinel duty for the next few weeks while you handle a special assignment.” Special assignment had an ominous ring to it. “What kind of special assignment? And why am I hearing it from you instead of Zrakovi?” Elder Z was my boss, not Alex, however Mr. Bossy liked to think otherwise.“ You’re going to be babysitting Jean Lafitte and making sure he doesn’t try to take revenge on anyone for what happened last month.” At my horrified, speechless gape, Alex gave me a grim smile and held his glass of port up in salute as my dessert congealed into a lump in my stomach. “Good luck with that, Jolie. Suzanne Johnson

Keeping up with him would require running, and there is no dignity in running after any man for any reason, injured or not. Suzanne Johnson

Jean Laffite was a sexy bad boy with a gentleman's manners and an air of barely suppressed danger. Every girl's secret dreamboat in other words. We always say we want a nice, hardworking, decent guy but we're lying to ourselves. - DJ Jaco Suzanne Johnson

The fight wasn’t over, ” I said through gritted teeth. “I’d have won it.” Probably. “Right, ” he said. “And something just flew past your window. It was oinking. Suzanne Johnson

An iron? Was he kidding? God Suzanne Johnson

I always hated it when TV reporters stuck a microphone in the faces of people who'd just lost a home or a loved one, wanting to know how they felt. They felt like shit. They hurt, and they didn't know how they were going to get through the night. They wanted to scream and cry and hit the guy with the microphone. Suzanne Johnson

Saturday, September 17, 2005: Today in New Orleans, a traffic light worked. Someone watered flowers. And anyone with the means to get online could have heard Dr. Joy’s voice wafting in the dry wind, a sound of grace, comfort and familiarity here in the saddest and loneliest place in the world.” Chris Rose, The Times-Picayune Suzanne Johnson

The only way he could truly stick out in New Orleans was if he were walking down the street on fire. Hunter Murphy

The morning sun in New Orleans felt like it was trying to make a point, convincing the old world to believe something new. Hunter Murphy

Just as the Mediterranean separated France from the country Algiers, so did the Mississippi separate New Orleans proper from Algiers Point. The neighborhood had a strange mix. It looked seedier and more laid-back all at the same time. Many artists lived on the peninsula, with greenery everywhere and the most beautiful and exotic plants. The French influence was heavy in Algiers, as if the air above the water had carried as much ambience as it could across to the little neighborhood. There were more dilapidated buildings in the community, but Jackson and Buddy passed homes with completely manicured properties, too, and wild ferns growing out of baskets on the porches, as if they were a part of the architecture. Many of the buildings had rich, ornamental detail, wood trim hand-carved by craftsmen and artisans years ago. The community almost had the look of an ailing beach town on some forgotten coast. Hunter Murphy

Enormous oak trees towered over the boulevard, which boasted homes with fine woodwork, wraparound porches, and moss on the sidewalks. 'There’s nothing like a house in New Orleans. Would you look at those balconies and columns?' He rolled his window down to take in the sounds of life in New Orleans. Hunter Murphy

The river breeze washed over him. He saw the magnificent views of the city and the bridge connecting Algiers Point to New Orleans. He marveled at the crescent shape of New Orleans as the ferry traveled nearly parallel to the curve in the Mississippi River. Hunter Murphy

The only way he could truly stick out in New Orleans was if he were walking down the street on fire. A businessman in suit and tie would stick out more than the characters Jackson passed on those old streets. Hunter Murphy

There was a warm breeze blowing in the car as they passed the mansions in the Garden District and they could smell the sweet aroma of the night-blooming jasmine. Soft light fell on the neutral ground along the streetcar tracks. Hunter Murphy

Toulouse Street ran one way toward the Mississippi River. Jackson looked over [Imogene's] head into one of those famous New Orleans courtyards, full of lush foliage, mossy brick, secrets, and wonder. Hunter Murphy

Buddy ran down the road, turned into another street, and vanished as if he had never been there, like another ghost from New Orleans's past. Hunter Murphy

She doesn’t even have shoes on” He was trying to reconcile something in his head while talking to Luke. “In all the time you spent in that shack, you forgot to pack her shoes?” Luke asked rhetorically, shaking his head in both wonder and disappointment. “Look, we’re in the boonies. I am sure shoes are optional, as are a full set of teeth. JennaLynne Duncan

I mingle with my peers or no one, and since I have no peers, I mingle with no one. John Kennedy Toole

Ladies glisten, men perspire, horses sweat.- Early Nun Quote, The Old Ursuline Convent (1727) New Orleans, LA Diana Hollingsworth Gessler

.I began speaking. First, I took issue with the media's characterization of the post- Katrina New Orleans as resembling the third world as its poor citizens clamored for a way out. I suggested that my experience in New Orleans working with the city's poorest people in the years before the storm had reflected the reality of third-world conditions in New Orleans, and that Katrina had not turned New Orleans into a third-world city but had only revealed it to the world as such. I explained that my work, running Reprieve, a charity that brought lawyers and volunteers to the Deep South from abroad to work on death penalty issues, had made it clear to me that much of the world had perceived this third-world reality, even if it was unnoticed by our own citizens. To try answer Ryan's question, I attempted to use my own experience to explain that for many people in New Orleans, and in poor communities across the country, the government was merely an antagonist, a terrible landlord, a jailer, and a prosecutor. As a lawyer assigned to indigent people under sentence of death and paid with tax dollars, I explained the difficulty of working with clients who stand to be executed and who are provided my services by the state, not because they deserve them, but because the Constitution requires that certain appeals to be filed before these people can be killed. The state is providing my clients with my assistance, maybe the first real assistance they have ever received from the state, so that the state can kill them. I explained my view that the country had grown complacent before Hurricane Katrina, believing that the civil rights struggle had been fought and won, as though having a national holiday for Martin Luther King, or an annual march by politicians over the bridge in Selma, Alabama, or a prosecution - forty years too late - of Edgar Ray Killen for the murder of civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi, were any more than gestures. Even though President Bush celebrates his birthday, wouldn't Dr. King cry if he could see how little things have changed since his death? If politicians or journalists went to Selma any other day of the year, they would see that it is a crumbling city suffering from all of the woes of the era before civil rights were won as well as new woes that have come about since. And does anyone really think that the Mississippi criminal justice system could possibly be a vessel of social change when it incarcerates a greater percentage of its population than almost any place in the world, other than Louisiana and Texas, and then compels these prisoners, most of whom are black, to work prison farms that their ancestors worked as chattel of other men? ..I hoped, out loud, that the post- Katrina experience could be a similar moment [to the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fiasco], in which the American people could act like the children in the story and declare that the emperor has no clothes, and hasn't for a long time. That, in light of Katrina, we could be visionary and bold about what people deserve. We could say straight out that there are people in this country who are racist, that minorities are still not getting a fair shake, and that Republican policies heartlessly disregard the needs of individual citizens and betray the common good. As I stood there, exhausted, in front of the thinning audience of New Yorkers, it seemed possible that New Orleans's destruction and the suffering of its citizens hadn't been in vain. Billy Sothern

Something big was trapped inside him, some great sadness, and he felt if he could cry, or even articulate it in speech, it would relieve the pressure and provide him some measure of relief. But he couldn't reach it. He couldn't find a way to address it. He wondered if it would become the thing that defined him. Nathan Ballingrud

Those who have not lived in New Orleans have missed an incredible, glorious, vital city--a place with an energy unlike anywhere else in the world, a majority- African American city where resistance to white supremacy has cultivated and supported a generous, subversive, and unique culture of vivid beauty. From jazz, blues, and and hip-hop to secondlines, Mardi Gras Indians, jazz funerals, and the citywide tradition of red beans and rice on Monday nights, New Orleans is a place of art and music and food and traditions and sexuality and liberation. Jordan Flaherty

New Orleans food is as delicious as the less criminal forms of sin. Mark Twain

The minute you land in New Orleans, something wet and dark leaps on you and starts humping you like a swamp dog in heat, and the only way to get that aspect of New Orleans off you is to eat it off. That means beignets and crayfish bisque and jambalaya, it means shrimp remoulade, pecan pie, and red beans with rice, it means elegant pompano au papillote, funky file z'herbes, and raw oysters by the dozen, it means grillades for breakfast, a po' boy with chowchow at bedtime, and tubs of gumbo in between. It is not unusual for a visitor to the city to gain fifteen pounds in a week--yet the alternative is a whole lot worse. If you don't eat day and night, if you don't constantly funnel the indigenous flavors into your bloodstream, then the mystery beast will go right on humping you, and you will feel its sordid presence rubbing against you long after you have left town. In fact, like any sex offender, it can leave permanent psychological scars. Tom Robbins

Satchmo was raised on steaming pots of red beans and rice, a meal so familiar that he described it as his “birthmark”–indeed, in adulthood, he often signed off letters with “Red beans and ricely yours. Fiona Ross

The millions of vacationers who came here every year before Katrina were mostly unaware of this poverty. French Quarter tourists were rarely exposed to the reality beneath the Disneyland Gomorrah that is projected as 'N'Awlins, ' a phrasing I have never heard a local use and a place, as far as I can tell, that I have never encountered despite my years in the city. The seemingly average, white, middle-class Americans whooped it up on Bourbon Street without any thought of the third-world lives of so many of the city's citizens that existed under their noses. The husband and wife, clad in khaki shorts, feather boa, and Mardi Gras beads well out of season, beheld a child tap-dancing on the street for money and clapped along to his beat without considering the obvious fact that this was an early school-day afternoon and that the child should be learning to read, not dancing for money. Somehow they did not see their own child beneath the dancer's black visage. Nor, perhaps, did they see the crumbling buildings where the city's poor live as they traveled by cab from the French Quarter to Commander's Palace. They were on vacation and this was not their problem. . Billy Sothern

Perspective was my secret weapon, and books gave me plenty of ammunition. Ian McNulty

All that Anne Rice crap is true, I thought on my way out the door; New Orleans really does have a vampire problem. Besides me, of course. J.R. Rain

I had been a happy normal wife and mother in Orange County until ten years ago, when I was attacked by an evil vampire... and turned into one myself. It's made my life since gross and scary and, let's face it, weird. J.R. Rain

I put the carpetbag on a ledge, and then, hanging upside down by my razor-clawed feet, slept until sunset. A first for me, and actually quite comfortable. Lord help me. J.R. Rain

Tell me, Mrs. Moon, will your need for sustenance trouble you on this excursion? How often do you need to feed?" I couldn't tell whether his interest was scientific, or whether he was afraid I might plunge my teeth into his throat at any moment. J.R. Rain

Every town has ‘THAT house’: the one that once held dark secrets. You know the house… the one no one will purchase? The one whose walls have seen blood? The one that even birds avoid, and the darkened windows resemble empty eye sockets? There are furtive, yet insistent, whispers about ‘that’ house, murmurs that perhaps the house is best left alone, lest the dark stain left upon that abode’s history seep into our own present-day. James Caskey

There is a unique bond between the land and the people in the Crescent City. Everyone here came from somewhere else, the muddy brown current of life prying them loose from their homeland and sweeping them downstream, bumping and scraping, until they got caught by the horseshoe bend that is New Orleans. Not so much as a single pebble ‘came’ from New Orleans, any more than any of the people did. Every grain of sand, every rock, every drip of brown mud, and every single person walking, living and loving in the city is a refugee from somewhere else. But they made something unique, the people and the land, when they came together in that cohesive, magnetic, magical spot; this sediment of society made something that is not French, not Spanish, and incontrovertibly not American. James Caskey

In the spring of 1988, I returned to New Orleans, and as soon as I smelled the air, I knew I was home. It was rich, almost sweet, like the scent of jasmine and roses around our old courtyard. I walked the streets, savoring that long lost perfume. Anne Rice

You don't control their minds, ma fifille, you control their hearts" - Cosette Alys Arden

I guess us folks in California are kind of straitlaced and old-fashioned." Hahaha, I thought on the way downstairs. I never thought I'd say those words with a straight face... J.R. Rain

You'll be in good hands with the colonel, you'll see." The colonel? Okay, I was obviously stuck in a Gone With the Wind theme park. Or maybe a Kentucky Fried Chicken farm. Or I was simply hallucinating... J.R. Rain

Was I altering the 'space-time continuum' or whatever they called it in time travel movies, just by existing right now? Perhaps I'd accidentally kill a mosquito that might have given some famous person a disease that killed them? J.R. Rain

I narrowed my eyes. Jean stayed awfully well informed about prete politics, and often told me things the Elders hadn't yet learned. I suspected this might be one of those things. "How do you know all this?" He shrugged. "A wise man watches as if her were un aigle and listens as if here were un faucon." Eagles and falcons. Both predators. Appropriate. Suzanne Johnson

Suspicion infused Alex's voice. "Okay? That's it?" I looked back at him and smiled. "That's it. We disagree. It's done. We'll deal with whatever comes next." He stood up, brows lowered over squinty eyes. "Did Lafitte ply you with brandy, or have the body snatchers been here? Suzanne Johnson

I would say Randolph's a horse's ass, but that would be unfair to the horse. Suzanne Johnson

I believe he's been asked to testify today, " I told Lennox, who'd continued to track Truman's progress through the room. "He's a member of the historical undead, Truman Capote, the author. He wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood.".."Hi, Truman, you're sitting next to me, " I said, pulling out his chair. I figured after he'd asked me to suck on his cherry, we should be on a first-name basis. . Suzanne Johnson

In each club we went the dancers had the same moves, none nearly as sensuous as mine on any dance floor, but because they are scantily clad and stripping off the men go nuts and throw money at them. In the largest club and the last we went to I watched one pretty girl with big boobs pull a handful of twenties in one set. I followed her to the ladies-room to learn she only danced a few rounds per night and averaged $250 every night and with my face and body she said I would bank much more. Darwun St. James

Time seemed to drag with dreamlike slowness, like a knife through cold honey, and the room took on a surreal golden sheen as if I was looking through that same jar of honey. Maybe at that moment, the sun shone just right though the grimy windows, but the woman, the shelves, the jars, everything in the room appeared in tones of gold and sepia, except for the painting behind the counter. From behind the shopkeeper's head, a fluorescent Mary and Jesus glared at me, their cartoon-like faces reproaching me for being there. Sara Stark

Despite what some people have said, President Bush did not want black people to die in New Orleans. However, he did hope they would not relocate to any areas of Texas that he likes to frequent. Scott McClellan

I have fourteen black wives an' one white, de chiefest one. I would sure enough shoo her away dis minute if you tek her place in my bed tonight, Mama Sam Moon."Was sex all these people ever thought about? I guess life was short back then, and nobody had much time to waste on anything else. J.R. Rain

Louis found me in the rear parlor, the one more distant from the noises of the tourists in the Rue Royale, and with its windows open to the courtyard below. I was in fact looking out the window, looking for the cat again, though I didn't tell myself so, and observing how our bougainvillea had all but covered the high walls that enclosed us and kept us safe from the rest of the world. The wisteria was also fierce in its growth, even reaching out from the brick walls to the railing of the rear balcony and finding its way up to the roof. I could never quite take for granted the lush flowers of New Orleans. Indeed, they filled me with happiness whenever I stopped to really look at them and surrender to their fragrance, as though I still had the right to do so, as though I still were part of nature, as though I were still a mortal man. Anne Rice

The only reason I'd lift my skirt is to pull a pistol and plug you in the head. Ruta Sepetys

From my friend, Brig. General Ezell Ware, Jr., CA Nat'l Guard, Dec.Keep on going till you get there, then keep going. Tracey Richardson

It seemed some pulp-novel version of a European hub, equal parts Renaissance-age Florence and modern day Paris with a heavy helping of Las Vegas and New York–at least, that was the way she thought of it. It was so far beyond description and unrelatable to any other place that she grasped desperately at straws trying to puzzle out how she'd tell the tale she'd no doubt live tonight. Alaria Thorne

Of all the places in the world, you ended up in New Orleans?” I asked, unable to keep the sarcasm from my voice. Michael nodded. “Yes, ” he agreed, apparently not registering the sarcasm. “Please, ” I muttered, pulling a face. “Hurricanes, poverty, homes that are never going to be rebuilt, oil spills.. this city has had so much crap thrown at it, and you’re telling me that there are angels here?” Again, Michael nodded. “Yes. Regardless of what has happened or what is happening, this city fights.” Okay, he may have had a point. The citizens of New Orleans were resilient; I’d give him that. C. L. Coffey

Another site of Leftist struggle [other than Detroit] that has parallels to New Orleans: Palestine. From the central role of displacement to the ways in which culture and community serve as tools of resistance, there are illuminating comparisons to be made between these two otherwise very different places. In the New Orleans Black community, death is commemorated as a public ritual (it's often an occasion for a street party), and the deceased are often also memorialized on t-shirts featuring their photos embellished with designs that celebrate their lives. Worn by most of the deceased's friends and family, these t-shirts remind me of the martyr posters in Palestine, which also feature a photo and design to memorialize the person who has passed on. In Palestine, the poster's subjects are anyone who has been killed by the occupation, whether a sick child who died at a checkpoint or an armed fighter killed in combat. In New Orleans, anyone with family and friends can be memorialized on a t-shift. But a sad truth of life in poor communities is that too many of those celebrate on t-shirts lost their lives to violence. For both New Orleans and Palestine, outsiders often think that people have become so accustomed to death by violence that it has become trivialized by t-shirts and posters. While it's true that these traditions wouldn't manifest in these particular ways if either population had more opportunities for long lives and death from natural causes, it's also far from trivial to find ways to celebrate a life. Outsiders tend to demonize those killed--especially the young men--in both cultures as thugs, killers, or terrorists whose lives shouldn't be memorialized in this way, or at all. But the people carrying on these traditions emphasize that every person is a son or daughter of someone, and every death should be mourned, every life celebrated. Jordan Flaherty

A second line is in effect a civil rights demonstration. Literally, demonstrating the civil right of the community to assemble in the street for peaceful purposes. Or, more simply, demonstrating the civil right of the community to exist. Ned Sublette

I didn't really understand community until I moved to New Orleans. Jordan Flaherty

Sometimes, the choices we make have devastating consequences Jeanette Vaughan

When I got to college, the fake ID thing wasn't that important, since pretty much everyone could get away with drinking in New Orleans. But the drugs, well, that was a different story altogether, because drugs are every bit as illegal in New Orleans as anywhere else--at least, if you're black and poor, and have the misfortune of doing your drugs somewhere other than the dorms at Tulane University. But if you are lucky enough to be living at Tulane, which is a pretty white place, especially contrasted with the city where it's located, which is 65 percent black, then you are absolutely set. Tim Wise

Momma was with the pony last night. Lily and me have him in the mornings, and we give him a wash with the shammy cloths and a soapy bucket so he's ready for Jade to look after him the next night. I think Momma must ride him too rough because he's always sweating and white-eyed when we get him, pulling tight at his rope and spreading his wide beige lips. He won't settle forever and ever, he just turns circles around the stake. Me and Lily get nervy watching him paw scoops out of the backyard soil. Kirsty Logan

He blamed television, movies, and books for his love of ghosts. It was a fascination that’s been with him since his youth. He always loved watching or reading anything that had to do with ghosts and haunted locations, especially historic sites like New Orleans, Salem, Tombstone, Gettysburg, and Old San Juan. Jason Medina

So are you saying I’m your Superman?”--- Josh Copeland Dawn Chartier

We have not erased history; we are becoming part of the city's history by righting the wrong image these monuments represent and crafting a better, more complete future for all our children and for future generations. Mitch Landrieu

A tomb is a vault, a vault is a home, ” Mr. Sadlot said casually sniffing the flower in his lapel. “That’s where the deceased chose to reside and that is where he will be placed.” Kekaju and the Hidden Swamp Robert W Sweeting

Going to college don't make you from somewhere, any more than a cat born in an over can call itself a biscuit. Laura Lippman

Instead of revering a four-year brief historical aberration that was called the Confederacy we can celebrate all 300 years of our rich, diverse history as a place named New Orleans and set the tone for the next 300 years. Mitch Landrieu