Empire of Sin Quotes

“New Orleans' rebellious and free-spirited personality is nothing if not resilient. And so the disruptive energies of the place- its vibrancy and eccentricity, its defiance and nonconformity, and yes, its violence and depravity- are likely to live on.”
― Gary Krist, Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

“New Orleans, it was often observed, was the first American metropolis to build an opera house, but the last to build a sewage system.”
― Gary Krist, Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

“This was, after all, New Orleans in 1890- the Crescent City of the Gilded Age, where aliases of convenience and unconventional living arrangements were anything but out of the ordinary, at least in certain parts of town. Identities were fluid here, and names and appearances weren't always the best guide to telling who was who.”
― Gary Krist, Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

“It is no easy matter to go to heaven by way of New Orleans.”
― Gary Krist, Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

“It is no easy matter to go to heaven by way of New Orleans. —REVEREND J. CHANDLER GREGG”
― Gary Krist, Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

“banana handler.”
― Gary Krist, Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

“Steel Arm Johnny, Mary Meathouse, Gold Tooth Gussie, Bird Leg Nora, Titanic, Coke-Eyed Laura, Scratch, Bull Frog Sonny, Snaggle Mouf Mary, Stack O. Dollars, Charlie Bow Wow, Good Lord the Lifter, and many more.”
― Gary Krist, Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

“As one Victorian minister put it in 1868, “It is no easy matter to go to heaven by way of New Orleans.”
― Gary Krist, Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

“This new black music represented excess and licentiousness, a direct flouting of traditional moral values.”
― Gary Krist, Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

“So much, it would seem, for the music that would eventually be regarded as the first truly American art form.”
― Gary Krist, Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

“And thus did Storyville become history.”
― Gary Krist, Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans