“After the storm, many citizens left New Orleans to live elsewhere, but those who stayed were determined to rebuild. They loved their city.”

“New Orleans, city of roaches, city of decay, city of our family, and of happy, happy people.”

“After the storm the city lies becalmed. It is a sunny morning, still and cold. Branches litter the streets like broken limbs. People clear away the wreckage. They swarm around like ants whose anthill has been scuffed; how doggedly they rebuild their lives.”

“The oyster was an animal worthy of New Orleans, as mysterious and private and beautiful as the city itself. If one could accept that oysters build their houses out of their lives, one could imagine the same of New Orleans, whose houses were similarly and resolutely shuttered against an outside world that could never be trusted to show proper sensitivity toward the oozing delicacies within.”

“But the reasons against going to New Orleans--that spicy southern city known for jazz and Mardi Gras and hospitality--were the very reasons we had to go.”

“America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.”