To be engaged in some small way in the revival of one of the great cities of the world is to live a meaningful existence by default.

It is impossible to capture the essence, tolerance, and spirit of south Louisiana in words.

If there was no New Orleans, America would just be a bunch of free people dying of boredom." -Judy Deck in an e-mail sent to Chris Rose

The longer you live in New Orleans, the more unfit you become to live anywhere else.

we dance even if there's no radio. we drink at funerals. we talk too much & laugh too loud & live too large, and, frankly, we're suspicious of others who don't.

Mardi Gras is the love of life. It is the harmonic convergence of our food, our music, our creativity, our eccentricity, our neighborhoods, and our joy of living. All at once.

A New Orleans credo: When life gives you lemons--make daiquiris.

...as bad as it is here, it's better than being somewhere else." -Chris Rose, regarding life in Post-Katrina New Orleans

Time is running out for the climate

If you cannot improve upon the silence, do not speak.

Everybody here has a story. New Orleans was always a place where people talked too much even if they had nothing to say. Now everyone's got something to say.

Do the thing you fear the most and the death of fear is certain.

I stumbled upon something and someone so magnificent I was truly blind to it.

Goodwill to others ... helps build you up. It is good for your body. It makes your blood purer your muscles stronger and your whole form more symmetrical in shape. It is the real elixir of life.

If it is a crime to love the South, its cause and its President, then I am a criminal. I would rather lie down in this prison and die than leave it owing allegiance to a government such as yours.

I've always been driven by the concept of equal justice under the law, but only the rich can pay great sums of money for legal assistance and that puts them at an advantage over the poor.

I wanted to remember in order to be able to return.

You feel touched and honored and alive when you give to someone

I think just the opposite is true: love is an ideology for eternal militants, and the more misfortunes life tries to burden us with, the more essential love becomes.

Gertrude Stein ... the Madame Curie of language. Because in her deep research she has crushed thousands of tons of matter to extract the radium of the word.