“In wartime people took action because of what they believed in. In peacetime people were driven by their private concerns.”

“Hes more a shape in a drape than a hep cat”

“Lately Mirabelle had reflected wistfully if people even noticed her a smartly dressed woman who came and went along the Promenade, always alone.”

“Wellsted will remember this moment for the rest of his life. It is the first time he desires something for himself that is not dedicated to his own advancement. It is the moment he falls in love.”

“She was herself in their company but a very specific version of herself.”

“It took a certain kind of person to come from luxury and seek out danger.”

“There are only two things: love, all sorts of love, with pretty girls, and the music of New Orleans or Duke Ellington. Everything else ought to go, because everything else is ugly. ”

“If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.”

“Jazz is not just 'Well, man, this is what I feel like playing.' It's a very structured thing that comes down from a tradition and requires a lot of thought and study.”

“Civilisation and the life of nations are governed by the same laws as prevail throughout nature and organic life.”

“So the next day I asked Dan how is it that Bubba can get killed, and what kind of half assed nature law would allow that. He thought about it for a while, and said, 'Well, I'll tell you, Forrest, a...”

“It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.”

“There is something about the state putting the power to bully into the hands of subnormal, sadistic apes that makes my blood boil.”

“I didn't get the impression that the policeman cared much about the whole thing either. After another thirty minutes of ruthless interrogation ('Can you ve'fy you eat banan' pancake?') he let me go...”

“Familiar words for dead black boys portrayed as complicit in their own demise. Michael Donald's body had been hanged on a Mobile street, and the police were doing the same thing to his name.”