Nola Quotes

“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, Inventing New Orleans: Writings of Lafcadio Hearn

“Even the sidewalks in ‪‎New Orleans‬ had personality.”
― Hunter Murphy, Imogene in New Orleans

“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, Imogene in New Orleans

“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, Imogene in New Orleans

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

“No matter how deeply you come to know a place, you can keep coming back to know it more.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas

“I’m okay. I’ve finally made a few new friends.”

“I know,” she sighed. “It makes me miss you more,...”
― Devon Monk, Magic at the Gate

“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, The Haunted History of New Orleans: Ghosts of the French Quarter

“She didn’t even know what she’d do when she got back to New Orleans, but inside she felt a yearning to shove her hands in the dirt, to cling to the ground there, forever.”
― Sarah Rae

“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, Imogene in New Orleans

“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, Imogene in New Orleans

“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, Imogene in New Orleans

“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, The Haunted History of New Orleans: Ghosts of the French Quarter

“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, Imogene in New Orleans

“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, Imogene in New Orleans

“Go with what is. Use what happens.”
― Tom Piazza, Why New Orleans Matters

“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, Imogene in New Orleans

“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, Imogene in New Orleans

“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, Imogene in New Orleans

“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, Imogene in New Orleans

“New Orleans is a place that actually resembles no other city on the face of the earth, yet it recalls vague memories of a hundred cities.”
― Lafcadio Hearn

“Feeling unwanted doesn't have a timeline attached to it.”
― Laura Lane McNeal, Doll-baby