John Cornyn Quotes

Does the imam have a legal right to build the mosque at Ground Zero? The answer is yes. But is it the right thing to do? The answer is no. And most Americans, and most moderate Muslims, join with me in that call.

Initially, I had two thoughts. First, this is a very large conspiracy; and second, our children in Washington. We knew there were a few unidentified planes that may have been headed for the White House or the Capitol Building.

The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.

I will never forget the bright September day, standing at my desk in the White House, when my young assistant said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center - and then a second one - and a third, the Pentagon.

I worked in the White House on 9/11, where the vice president was given the authority to, if he deemed necessary, shoot down an American passenger jet.

In 2002, a year after 9-11, as a Congressman, I was banned from the White House by Karl Rove because I told the 'Washington Times' that if there is another terrorist attack on our homeland and we have done nothing more than Bush has done to date, 'Bush will have blood on his hands.'

I think it is important to recall the context of those challenging times immediately following 9/11. For me, I had just returned to Washington from an overseas posting and I reported for duty on the morning of 9/11. I knew in my gut when I saw the video of the first plane hitting the tower in Manhattan that it was bin Laden.

You know, OK, I made a few jokes - and they killed 3000 Americans. Fair trade.

There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.

If you put Sen. Kerry in the White House, I think you are going to see that another terrorist attack happen ... and I don't want to see another Sept. 11.

September 2001. A sunny day in New York. Many of us who are writers were at work on the transformation of life into a poem, story, a chapter of a novel, when terror pounced from the sky, and the world made witness to it.

The World Trade Center was the target for the world, and they hit the target.

Most people in Washington assumed if Obama made it to the White House he would appoint Biden as his secretary of state, a position Biden openly admitted he wanted.

For President Bush, the first, the 41st president, George Herbert Walker Bush, I spent all 4 years of his presidency on the staff for the National Security Council.

On September 11, 2001, America suffered an unimaginable tragedy and witnessed the incredible heroism of hundreds of first responders who rushed into the World Trade Center to save lives.

I have the deepest regret about 9/11. Sept. 11, 2001, was one of the most difficult days I've ever had. I was in Lima, Peru, and had to fly back eight hours not knowing what happened in my own country, knowing thousands of my fellow citizens had died.

I think so. 9/11 has been a turning point in American history, there's no doubt about that.

[9/11] was not meant to be argued with. It wasn't part of any negotiation. No message was intended with it. It spoke for itself, which is unusual.

We turn now over the debate of the proposed Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero....The controversy has raised profound questions about religious tolerance and prejudice in the United States.

Ten years have now passed since many of us first felt the jolt of history-when the second plane crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. We knew from that moment that things can go terribly wrong in our world-not because life is unfair, or moral progress impossible, but because we have failed, generation after generation, to abolish the delusions of our ignorant ancestors.

We have an authorization to use military force against terrorists. We passed it after 9/11.

One of the worst days in America's history saw some of the bravest acts in Americans' history. We'll always honor the heroes of 9/11. And here at this hallowed place, we pledge that we will never forget their sacrifice.

Where were you when the world stopped turning on that September day?

I do not condone hostility toward any church simply to vent personal malice or umbrage.

The thing is, is that every terrorist attack we've had since 9/11 has been legal immigration.