“When I am introduced as someone from New Orleans, people sometimes say: "I'm so sorry."New Orleans. I'm so sorry.That's not the way it was before,not the way it's supposed to be. When people find out you're from New Orleans, they're supposed to tell you about how they got drunk there once, or fell in love there, or first heard the music there that changed their lives. At worst people would say: "I've always wanted to go there."But now, it's just: "I'm sorry."Man, that kills me. That just kills me.”

“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.”

“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”

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

“He's got that New Orleans thing crawling all over him, that good stuff, that We Are the Champions, to hell with the rest and I'll just start over kind of attitude.”

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

“This book is dedicated to Thomas Coleman, a retired longshoreman, who died in his attic at 2214 St. Roch Avenue in New Orleans’ 8th Ward on or about August 29, 2005. He had a can of juice and a bedspread at his side when the waters rose. There were more than a thousand like him.”