Allen Toussaint Quotations

Wow. Good heavens. I'm getting drenched just looking at these pictures. The water is whipping my body.

So many people have reached out in wonderful ways. New York has been wonderful.

holed up at the New Orleans Superdome hoping to get on a bus for Houston's Astrodome.

I resolved really early on about Katrina, there'll be some lemonade coming out of it. Like this right here.

My whole zone is dead. No electricity, no gas, no stores open nearby, but the spirit is there.

The mother-in-laws themselves weren't natural jokes but most comedians used to use that.

As an early child, I tried to play every kind of music that I heard. I thought everyone was doing that.

To travel and to get around different places, especially in station wagons, you could really see America.

Whenever I wrote songs - particularly back then - it would always be for a particular artist.

When you're playing live, those people who you're trying to please and reach, they're right there giving you feedback. And you don't get that feedback in the studio.

I never planned on being a live performer. My whole forte was about being in the studio, producing, playing the piano on recording sessions. I was all about the studio.

To play with a band all of the time, just about nightly, was good for me because I wrote lots of arrangements and I got a lot of my transposition and chords ironed out.

As a young child, I thought that all pianists played everything. I mean, I thought anything on piano - any piano music, all pianists played it.

To get to New Orleans you don't pass through anywhere else. That geographical location, being aloof, lets it hold onto the ritual of its own pace more than other places that have to keep up with the progress.

And do respect the women of the world; remember you all had mothers.

My music is homegrown from the garden of New Orleans. Music is everything to me short of breathing. Music also has a role to lift you up - not to be escapist but to take you out of misery.

Those things that are most dear cannot be drowned - the grooves and the second line, the way you feel inside when you hear Professor Longhair. Even when you're sitting down, that's in you.

Dr. John is phenomenal. Dr. John is a heavyweight and one of the nicest guys in the world -- unhurried, and he plays very unhurried. His life is that way. And as for being an ambassador for New Orleans sound and New Orleans music, he's doing it to the bone.

There's so much love that has been sent to that area, ... And I'm proud to be one of the senders. But I'm a receiver, as well.

It was the real thing ... When we were recording, sometimes we'd make a 'human fade' - we would just play softer and softer. We didnt have any overdubbing. When one guy took a solo, the other guys would stand up and snap their fingers and dance around the studio. We were having a wonderful time.

This is quite a time. Maybe the most unique time ever for me. But I can't thank everyone enough for what they've done for New Orleans. We have really gotten a chance to find out who we are at a time like this. And where we are. We're in the greatest country in the world.

It was so good to see Irma's face when we made this album, ... She did us proud.

It's surprising to me how much has happened in such a short length of time,