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 want to write stories that are different from the ones I've written so far, Junpei thought: I want to write about people who dream and wait for the night to end, who long for the light so they can hold the ones they love. But right now I have to stay here and keep watch over this woman and this girl. I will never let anyone-not anyone-try to put them into that crazy box- not even if the sky should fall or the earth crack open with a roar.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from After the Quake
“Trust me, baby, you weren’t that good. I was just a better actress than you were actor. (Zephyra to Stryker)
Ew! No offense, Mum, I don’t want to know who you’ve slept with. Kill the sexual bantering and him before I go deaf from it. (Medea)”
― Sherrilyn Kenyon, quote from One Silent Night
“Tea should be taken in solitude.”
― C.S. Lewis, quote from Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
“The people he met, the places he passed, were all steps in his journey, and he kept a place inside his heart for each of them.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
“Failure concentrates the mind wonderfully. If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough.” I”
― Jasper Fforde, quote from The Well of Lost Plots
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