Douglas Brinkley · 736 pages
Rating: (2.1K votes)
“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
“I was his practice wife, I realize. Adam and I were his practice family. When the story of his life is spun, we will simply be the early threads. We will not be the color.”
― Sarah Pinborough, quote from Behind Her Eyes
“People fear monsters. Monsters fear the Cannibal Owl.” Nettie”
― quote from Wake of Vultures
“Do you ever wonder, Zelda, if you’re allowed to be happy?”
Tears sprang to my eyes. “Yes,” I whispered. “All the time. Every minute.”
His brows furrowed and he brushed the backs of his fingers along my cheek.
“I hate to hear you say that. I hate that I can’t take that pain from you.”
“Me too,” I said. “For you. You carry too much.”
“Maybe we both do.”
― Emma Scott, quote from The Butterfly Project
“Neither force, nor argument, nor opinion,” said Merlyn with the deepest sincerity, “are thinking. Argument is only a display of mental force, a sort of fencing with points in order to gain a victory, not for truth. Opinions are the blind alleys of lazy or of stupid men, who are unable to think.”
― T.H. White, quote from The Book of Merlyn
“Stupid little boys should learn to use guns and not wave them around.”
― Gail Carriger, quote from Manners & Mutiny
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