French Quarter Quotes

“Louisiana in September was like an obscene phone call from nature. The air--moist, sultry, secretive, and far from fresh--felt as if it were being exhaled into one's face. Sometimes it even sounded like heavy breathing. Honeysuckle, swamp flowers, magnolia, and the mystery smell of the river scented the atmosphere, amplifying the intrusion of organic sleaze. It was aphrodisiac and repressive, soft and violent at the same time. In New Orleans, in the French Quarter, miles from the barking lungs of alligators, the air maintained this quality of breath, although here it acquired a tinge of metallic halitosis, due to fumes expelled by tourist buses, trucks delivering Dixie beer, and, on Decatur Street, a mass-transit motor coach named Desire.”
― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

“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

“You can take the people out of the city, but you can't take the soul — that remains here.”
― T.J. Fisher, Orléans Embrace with The Secret Gardens of the Vieux Carré

“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

“Our dreams drive us so. One after another. Jasmine sprung bravely from the fertile soil of our suffering. And who can live without dreams? Who loves their brief, sweet passage? Dum vivimus, vivimus. While we live, let us live.”
― David B. Lentz, Bourbon Street: The Dreams of Aeneas in Dixie

“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

“It seemed some pulp-novel version of a European hub, equal parts Renaissance-age Florence and modern day Paris with a heavy helping of Las Vegas and New York—at least, that was the way she thought of it. It was so far beyond description and unrelatable to any other place that she grasped desperately at straws trying to puzzle out how she'd tell the tale she'd no doubt live tonight.”
― Alaria Thorne, Flogged In The French Quarter

“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

“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

“I’m mesmerized by the way he speaks—New Orleans is pronounced N’awlins. When he says backyard, it’s backyaaad. It’s the kind of voice that makes you feel instantly at home, like you’re a close friend or part of the inner circle.
—SINGLE-MINDED”
― Lisa Daily, Single-Minded: A Novel

“Steam fingers reached up through Decatur's freshly scoured sidewalks as they did each morning, the ancestors of the Choctaw and Saint-Dominguens and Spanish and French, no doubt reminding them they would not reliquish this colony again to the Americans.”
― Parker Bauman, Tiny Righteous Acts

“They were all in New Orleans, a place like none other in America. A city whose residents treasured their food, their music, their architecture, and their ability to live in the moment. Founded by the French, conquered by the Spanish, then taken back under French rule before being sold to the Americans, New Orleans had survived slavery, the Civil War, yellow-fever epidemics, and ferocious hurricanes resulting in the deaths of hundreds, the displacement of thousands more, and the destruction of huge swaths of the city. People who lived in the Big Easy well understood the fragility of life.”
― Mary Jane Clark, That Old Black Magic