Ray Nagin Quotes

The whole Lower Ninth Ward hasn't really recovered, but I feel a good spirit in my heart that something is going on - music is coming back slowly.

The recovery of the Gulf Coast region will take years to complete.

My favorite day was Monday, September the 25th, 2006. New Orleans, Louisiana, site of the Superdome. I watched our people who had suffered so grievously through Hurricane Katrina fill a stadium hours before a game and stay hours after the game.

So while an incredible amount of progress has been made, on this fifth anniversary, I wanted to come here and tell the people of this city directly: My administration is going to stand with you - and fight alongside you - until the job is done. Until New Orleans is all the way back, all the way.

The city of New Orleans showed America what it takes to rebuild a great place. We're all going together, and we're not leaving anybody behind.

I have no doubt that the government of this great nation will work with its people to lead New Orleans and the Gulf Coast back to an enlightened, proud, safe part of the world.

Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well.

I want people to know that it's all right to come back to New Orleans. You can drink the water. The only way that the city can come back is if you come back. Tourism is a big part of it.

Everything changed after Katrina. It's a new New Orleans now and I think it's better. It was a wake-up call and it rebuilt and cleaned up the city. It all happened for a reason. I'm now grateful for Katrina.

Right after any kind of procedure you want to be surrounded by love and you need good healing vibes and positive energy around you.

'Treme' begins after Hurricane Katrina, and it's a year-by-year account of how everyday people there put their lives back together. It's sort of a testament to, or an argument for why, a great American city like New Orleans needs to be saved and preserved.

I really wanted to give people that tool, that thing, that answer, 'Well, what are you going to do after Katrina? How does New Orleans come back?' And I'm thinking to myself, New Orleans is back. We're the definition of 'back.' We're the definition of 'rebirth,' of 'renaissance.'

It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild New Orleans - the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans. This city will be a majority African American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way. It wouldn't be New Orleans.

My anger made me drink as an escape from reality, a way of forgetting. But you don't know when the medicinal effect ends and the poisoning begins ... This is my sixth year of sobriety. Overcoming alcoholism has been my greatest challenge and my greatest reward.

It is never too late to begin rebuilding, Though all into ruins your life seems hurled; For see! how the light of the New Year is gilding The wan, worn face of the bruised old world.

Part broken - part whole, you begin again. ( from 'Why books seem shockproof against change.' THE TIMES: BOOKS)

Well, there's Katrina, but you can go through lots of Kurdistan and it looks like Katrina was just there but there's people living in it.

Once the storm comes out, the landscape changes. What you had before is altered in some way. And you have a choice: build something new and better from what is left or abandon it.

The only thing tragedy gives us is the opportunity to rebuild our life.

New Orleans is my essence, my soul, my muse, and I can only dream that one day she will recapture her glory. I will do everything within my power to make that happen and to help in any way I can to ease the suffering of my city, my people!

Any fool can blow something up. Any fool can destroy. But to see these guys, these firefighters and these policemen and people from all over the country, literally with buckets, rebuilding... that's extraordinary. And that's why we have already won... they can't... it's light. It's democracy. They can't shut that down.

While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have passed the worst and with continued unity of effort we shall rapidly recover.

Because you think an explosion has taken place and you're looking at the shards and you say, 'Well, can we put this back together?' And by God, maybe you can put it back together. And maybe it won't be the same, but maybe it will be different, and maybe it can even be better in a different way.

The city is going to survive, we are going to get through it, It's going to be very, very difficult time. I don't think we yet know the pain that we're going to feel when we find out who we lost, but the thing we have to focus on now is getting this city through this, and surviving and being stronger for it.

The old Paris is no more (the form of a city changes faster, alas! than a mortal's heart).