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

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.

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.

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.

Most people spend their lives vulnerable, relying on the rest of the world to not take advantage of it.

I lived rough, by my wits, was homeless, lived on the streets, lived on friends' floors, was happy, was miserable.

No tears to damn you when jealousy burns.

Philosophers make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light because they are so high.

At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question.

I look around my life and it's hard to believe that music has given me all that I have.

I think that the problem of the American negro goes beyond the principle of any organization whether it's a religious, political, or otherwise.

Humor is essential to a full and happy life. It is a reliever and relaxer of pressure and tension, and the saving element in many situations.

I would say to today's young minister, 'Be not afraid to give much time to solitary walks and meditation'.

I am unlikely to trust a sentence that comes easily.