Quotes from The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast

“Unlike the Marines, who are given macho monikers like “jarheads,” the Coast Guard had long been denigrated in military circles as fey “puddle jumpers.” But just as 9/11 brought a newfound respect to firemen, Katrina did the same for the reputation of the Coast Guard. At the peak of rescue operations they had 62 aircraft, 30 cutters, and 111 small boats stepping up in rescue and recovery operations. They did it all one person at a time.”
― Douglas Brinkley, quote from The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast

“Salt Lake City has a monument to the seagulls, which in 1848 swooped down from the sky to devour a swarm of locusts, thereby saving Utah crops. They were known affectionately as the “Mormon Air Force.” Someday New Orleans should likewise honor the dragonfly. With their large multifaceted eyes, two pairs of strong transparent wings, and outstretched bodies, dragonflies frighten most people. On Tuesday dragonflies blanketed New Orleans, hovering just inches above the smelly floodwater, eating every mosquito in sight.”
― Douglas Brinkley, quote from The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast

“History will remember the Superdome debacle—caused by the dearth of evacuation buses—as “Nagin’s Folly,” mayoral incompetence of the first order.”
― Douglas Brinkley, quote from The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast

“John McPhee’s 1989 book The Control of Nature, for”
― Douglas Brinkley, quote from The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast

“A crooked peace officer is just a damned abomination,” McCarthy wrote. “That’s all you can say about it. He’s ten times worse than the criminal.”48”
― Douglas Brinkley, quote from The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast

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Popular quotes

“See, that’s the tragedy of the human condition. No one wants to be corrupted by power when they set out to get it. They have good, even noble reasons for doing whatever it is they do. They don’t want to misuse it, they don’t want to abuse it, and they don’t want to become vicious monsters. Good people, decent people, set out to take the high road, to pick up power without letting it change them or push them away from their ideals.
But it keeps happening anyway.
History is full of it. As a rule, people aren’t good at handling power. And the second you start to think you’re better at controlling your power than anyone else, you’ve already taken the first step.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Cold Days

“When we look at a solid lump of iron or rock, we are 'really' looking at what is almost entirely empty space. It looks and feels solid and opaque because our sensory systems and brains find it convenient to treat it as solid and opaque. It is convenient for the brain to represent a rock as solid because we can't walk through it. 'Solid' is our way of experiencing things that we can't walk through or fall throug, because of the electromagnetic forces between atoms. 'Opaque' is the experience we have when light bounces off the surface of an object, and none of it goes through.”
― Richard Dawkins, quote from The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

“Feelings, emotions - they are neither right nor wrong. They cannot be assigned a value. Feelings *are*. By labeling a feeling wrong, you force yourself to ignore that feeling. And what you most need is to feel it, let it burn through you, then get on with life.”
― Karen Marie Moning, quote from The Highlander's Touch

“Well, and what if we give in to our troubles at every step! We would be pitiable creatures indeed to be so weak, for is not a man's spirit given to him to rise above his misfortunes? As for our wants, they are many and unfilled, for who is so rich or compassionate as to supply them? Want is our companion from birth to death, familiar as the seasons or the earth, varying only in degree. What profit to bewail that which has always been and cannot change?”
― Kamala Markandaya, quote from Nectar in a Sieve

“Don’t worry, though, because Prince Hubert is very handsome and kind. That’s all you wanted in a boyfriend, wasn’t it?”

“No,” I said.

She raised an eyebrow. “It must be. If you had admired any other qualities you would have developed them in yourself, wouldn’t you?”

Which was really too much. I put my hands on my hips. “Aren’t fairy godmothers supposed to be nice and make you feel better about yourself?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, you’re confusing fairy god- mothers with sales clerks.”
― Janette Rallison, quote from My Fair Godmother

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About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.