James Wolcott Quotes

I listen to National Public Radio, which, to me at least, presents the most rounded view of things.

I was in Jersey when the whole World Trade Center thing happened and I felt powerless. So, I went to Hawaii and did a surf movie. It's kind of fluffy.

I'm a New Yorker. I was there during 9/11 and I saw how, not only New York City stopped for a moment, we all took an inhale and exhale at the same time - the world united at that time, and it changed my life.

We all have very personal relationships to what happened on 9/11 and the events after tracking Osama bin Laden. Nobody can escape from the influence of that.

The voice I've chosen to turn to is that of NPR. With a reputation for some of the finest journalism in the country, the nonprofit organization is renowned for its unbiased stance - to the point that it's been accused of being both conservative and liberal.

Like everyone else in the first weeks after the tragedy of 9/11, I was looking frantically for some way to help.

The last four years have not diluted the memory or weakened the resolve of our citizens. Four years later, our hearts still hurt for the families whose loved ones were murdered that day.

The 9/11 strikes left an indelible impact on our minds, but in relative terms, the scale of casualties actually wasn't all that high.

We were trying to get all of the planes down out of the sky. And we watched as the towers of the World Trade Center collapsed - something no one expected and anticipated. And you could sit there and see and be aware that thousands of people were at that moment being killed as a result of the terrorist attacks that struck the United States.

Sometimes when I'm watching television and something, an image, will come on that has to do with 9/11 or some of these families telling their stories, or children talking about drawing pictures of airplanes flying into towers, you know, I find myself still choking up.

I was in New York City on 9/11. Grief remains from that awful day, but not only grief. There is fear, too, a fear informed by the knowledge that whatever my worst nightmare is, there is someone out there embittered enough to carry it out.

Broadcasting through 9/11 together, like Katie Couric and I did, creates a bond.

I remember, after 'Tumbleweeds,' my friend and I wrote 'Pride and Glory.' I was just about to get it going. I had some really great actors attached, and New Line was going to make the movie, and 9/11 happened. And it was over. By September 12, it was over. And rightfully so. I understood that.

If you ask me what I think about going to work every day, it's 9/11 and preventing another 9/11. There were too many people I knew.

I'm very proud of 'Will the Sun Ever Shine Again.' That was a song written very close to the 9/11 event.

Given the multiple crises we are living through, investigative journalism is all the more important.

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.

I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin towers crumble to the ground, a side of the Pentagon destroyed, and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble.

Peter Falk and Denis Leary today walked into a Starbucks and shot 27 people, without any announcement whatsoever.

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

If you're Chris Christie, who is governor of New Jersey, a state that obviously was impacted by 9/11, this gives you an opportunity to talk about how, as governor, you had to deal with terrorism and security issues.

The Washington Post was interesting because it's such a politically minded newspaper.

The media is news gatherers. Why in the world are the media a factor?

I think when tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning. These past thirty days, I have spent many of my moments lost in that void. And I know that many future moments will be consumed by the vast emptiness as well. But when I can, I want to choose life and meaning.

I was visiting my mother in Florida when the September 11, 2001 attacks happened. I was working on The Tale of Despereaux at that point. I had already gone into writing it with a great deal of trepidation and fear, and then this God-awful thing happens and it was really hard to even get back home to Minneapolis.