The people of our city are holding on by a thread. Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows.

We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared.

We're learning as we go. We're a lot smarter this time. We understand what it takes to mobilize away from the threat of a hurricane.

We could receive a storm surge of three to five feet.

Ladies and gentlemen, I wish I had better news for you but we are facing a storm that most of us have feared. This is a threat that we've never faced before.

You have drug addicts that are now walking around this city looking for a fix, and that's the reason why they were breaking in hospitals and drugstores. They're looking for something to take the edge off of their jones, if you will.

Get off your ass and get down here to fix the goddamn biggest disaster in the nation's history.

If we're unified, there's nothing we cannot do.

The people of our city are holding on by a thread. Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows.

Basically, the start of my thinking process is: 'OK, if you didn't have to worry about re-election, what would you be doing?' That's kind of how I'm starting to think.

At the Superdome, a young man came up to me holding a baby. He'd run out of diapers. He'd run out of medicine. His baby was sick. The guy's saying, 'Help me! Take my baby.' What could I do? That's the definition of helpless.

At the end of the day, I believe truth is stronger than any lie that's out there.

I always feel that in politics, you have a bridle on. Well, I took the bridle off. And I tell you, it felt pretty good.

I don't think that any person can fix FEMA. I think FEMA needs a total restructuring. I think it needs to be taken from scratch and redone. The regulations are outdated; the rules are outdated.

I need a break from politics, that's for sure. This is the hardest job in America.

I want to continue to stay plugged into New Orleans and help people who are still struggling with the recovery here, and then, if I can help around the country and around the world, absolutely, I'll be open to that.

I was among the people in the Superdome. I knew what was going on every minute. I did not have air conditioning nor shower facilities. I made decisions based upon facts and not what I thought was going to happen. So history will judge me based upon those actions.

I'll just tell you, I'm not a big FEMA fan.

I'm a lifelong Democrat, but I have supported some Republicans. I'm all about results, man. If somebody can deliver, that's where I'm gonna go. It's about who can get the job done.

If it were my decision, I'd knock the Superdome down. If I couldn't knock it down, I'd just open the roof and gut the whole inside - totally modernize it. If you just dust it off and paint a little bit but don't reimage it, the legacy will be horrible.

One of the best moments I've ever had in New Orleans is seeing Bourbon Street filled on a weekend night not long ago. Just watching the city breathe again.

The reality of Katrina didn't really strike me until the first time I flew up in a helicopter and saw areas of the city that I had ridden my bicycle as a youth being fully flooded.

This city will be chocolate at the end of the day. 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.

When people are dying, bureaucracy should be thrown out of the water.

Songwriting is my gift from God.

This is God's work. Therefore it must be triumphant. There is no place for misgiving or despondency.

Many are needed to plant and water what has been planted now that the faith has spread so far and there are so many people... No matter who plants or waters, God gives no harvest unless what is planted is the faith of Peter and unless he agrees to his teachings.

God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.

I frankly don't care if you agree with my stand on abortion. I take that stand because no other stand is consistent with decent principles, and no other standard is consistent with the will of God.

The robe of flesh wears thin, and with the years God shines through all things.

The good poet sticks to his real loves, those within the realm of possibility. He never tries to hold hands with God or the human race.

Humanity is the sin of God.

Fight the good fight of faith, and God will give you spiritual mercies.

We are all gifted, but we have to discover the gift, uncover the gift, nurture and develop the gift and use it for the Glory of God and for the liberation struggle of our people.

This subsistence, or manner of being of God is his one essence so far as it has personal properties.

When you focus on being a blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance.

Two days after moving we recommended ourselves to God, Our Lord, and fled, hoping that, although it was late in the season and the fruits of the tunas were giving out, by remaining in the field we might still get over a good portion of the land.

When I see children, I see the face of God. That's why I love them so much. That's what I see.

'Thou shalt not get found out' is not one of God's commandments; and no man can be saved by trying to keep it.

Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.

There is one thing higher than Royalty: and that is religion, which causes us to leave the world, and seek God.

The Christian must trust in a withdrawing God.

Disney had such a hold on the mind of America-they were Adolf Hitler. The whole country thought Disney was some sort of god and that animation was some sort of pure thing for children.

Into every soul, however purged and fenced, evil appears to have as much freedom of entrance as God Himself.

Learn about the world, the way it works, any kind of science and anthropology, it's really an interesting place we live in. Evolution is a really fantastic idea, even more than the idea of God I think.

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.

Classical philosophical theism maintained the ontological distinction between God and creative world that is necessary for any genuine theism by conceiving them to be of different substances, with particular attributes predicated of each.

To judge between good or bad, between successful and unsuccessful would take the eye of a God.

The very contradictions in my life are in some ways signs of God's mercy to me.