Key West Quotes

“A fallow mind is a field of discontent.”
― John H. Cunningham, Red Right Return

“my family's going to eat as long as anybody eats. What they're trying to do is starve you Conchs out of here so they can burn down the shacks and put up apartments and make this a tourist town. That's what I hear. I hear they're buying up lots, and then after the poor people are starved out and gone somewhere else to starve some more they're going to come in and make it into a beauty spot for tourists.”
― Ernest Hemingway, To Have and Have Not

“The plum-colored night sky was shifting to pink to make room for the day, which looked as though it might turn out “glorious and whimsical,” as the Key West Citizen had promised.”
― Lucy Burdette, Topped Chef

“Natives of the Florida Keys often refer to themselves as Conchs, and for good reason: They have been drinking.”
― Dave Barry, Best. State. Ever.: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland

“You have reached the home and workplace of Roberto Natchez. I do not often take calls. I make no promise to return them. I have much to do. You may leave a message if you wish.”
― Laurence Shames, Scavenger Reef

“The fucking you get ain't worth the fucking you get.”
― Wade Ferrel

“Brian and Avis deliver their stacks and try to refuse dinner, but the waiters bring them glasses of burgundy, porcelain plates with thin, peppery steaks redolent of garlic, scoops of buttery grilled Brussels sprouts, and a salad of beets, walnuts, and Roquefort. They drag a couple of lawn chairs to a quiet spot on the street and they balance the plates on their laps. Some ingredient in the air reminds Avis of the rare delicious trips they used to make to the Keys. Ten years after they'd moved to Miami they'd left Stanley and Felice with family friends and Avis and Brian drove to Key West on a sort of second honeymoon. She remembers how the land dropped back into distance: wetlands, marsh, lazy-legged egrets flapping over the highway, tangled, sulfurous mangroves. And water. Steel-blue plains, celadon translucence.
She and Brian had rented a vacation cottage in Old Town, ate small meals of fruit, cheese, olives, and crackers, swam in the warm, folding water. Each day stirring into the next, talking about nothing more complicated than the weather, spotting a shark off the pier, a mysterious constellation lowering in the west. Brian sheltered under a celery-green umbrella while Avis swam: the water formed pearls on the film of her sunscreen. They watched the night's rise, an immense black curtain from the ocean. Up and down the beach they hear the sounds of the outdoor bars, sandy patios switching on, distant strains of laughter, bursts of music. Someone played an instrument- quick runs of notes, arpeggios floating in soft ovals like soap bubbles over the darkening water.”
― Diana Abu-Jaber, Birds of Paradise

“As I sat in Mallory Square the next morning, waiting for Iliza, the pale yellow light of the sun reflected off the water as if to parody the jaundice of the island’s locals.”
― Sean Norris, Heaven and Hurricanes

“Dating on this island is like fishing in the Hudson River. There's a real strong chance that anything you catch is either toxic, diseased, or dead inside.”
― Sean Norris, Heaven and Hurricanes

“Character determines fate.”
― Meryl Sawyer, Half Moon Bay

“Agustín Parlá Orduña was among the early Cuban aviation aces. He was born in Key West, Florida, on October 10, 1887, and received his early education there. After Cuba was liberated from Spain, the family returned to Havana, where he continued his education. On April 20, 1912, he received his pilot’s license at the Curtiss School of Aviation in Miami. On July 5, 1913, when the Cuban Army Air Corps was formed, Agustín Parlá was commissioned as a captain in the Cuban Armed Forces.
On May 17, 1913, Domingo Rosillo and Agustín Parlá attempted the first international flights to Latin America, by trying to fly their airplanes from Key West to Havana. At 5:10 a.m., Rosillo departed from Key West and flew for 2 hours, 30 minutes and 40 seconds before running out of gas. He had planned to land at the airfield at Camp Columbia in Havana, but instead managed to squeak in at the shooting range, thereby still satisfactorily completing the flight.
Parlá left Key West at 5:57 in the morning. Just four minutes later, at 6:01 a.m., he had to carefully turn back to the airstrip he had just left, since the aircraft didn’t properly respond to his controls. Parlá said, “It would not let me compensate for the wind that blew.” When he returned to Key West, he discovered that two of the tension wires to the elevator were broken.
On May 19, 1913, Parlá tried again and left Key West, carrying the Cuban Flag his father had received from José Martí. This time he fell short and had to land at sea off the Cuban coast near Mariel, where sailors rescued him from his seaplane.”
― Captain Hank Bracker

“No matter how much I loved the idea of a book set in Key West, the reality of it never did anything but disappoint me. Maybe alexithymia was to blame. Maybe it was the writer’s lack of talent. Maybe it was the inebriant nature or ephemeral essence of Key West living. Maybe it was all of those things. Maybe it was none of them. It didn’t matter. It was my opinion that no story set in Key West has ever, or will ever, do the island justice.”
― Sean Norris, Heaven and Hurricanes

“An endless party sounds fun in theory, but the body and mind can only take so much. Some people show up here hoping it’s the answer to all of their problems and figure out too late that they actually brought the problems with them.”
― Kristy McGinnis, Motion of Intervals