Vernon Jordan Quotes

9/11 was a terrible, horrific, tragic day.

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.

We did exactly what everybody in the country did, watching it. You entered this state of sort of denials. You think, well, it must have been a tragic accident by an amateur pilot. And then you see the next plane coming.

The attacks of September 11, 2001, were spectacular, riveting, grim, costly and searing. The shock that they caused reverberated throughout the world. What happened in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania ended the lives of thousands of people and changed the lives of many more. But they did not change the world.

The tragedy of September 11th was so sudden, so enormous, and so horrendous, both in terms of lives lost and global consequences, that this country and the world went into immediate and prolonged shock.

We came back right over the World Trade Center and could see, even from that altitude, the devastation, the smoke that was coming up. It was obvious it was going to be horrible.

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.

I watched the Trade Center buildings go down from my balcony, and it was a terrifying moment. I couldn't get my mind around it at all.

Unfortunately I was in New York when 9/11 happened.

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

[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.

Back on September 11, terrorists attacked our metropolitan cores, two of America's great cities. They did that because they knew that was where they could do the most damage and weaken us the most.

I wasn't in any way a kind of soothsayer or not surprised when Sept. 11 happened. I was absolutely shocked.

March 11, 2004, now occupies a place in the history of infamy.

On the morning of September 11th, I was literally about 18 blocks from the World Trade Center. I witnessed in person what a lot of people witnessed in person, but what the world really saw on the television screen, I saw it with my own eyes that morning.

September 11 awoke us to the threat of terrorism. It was forever bookmarked in our history as the day when life as Americans knew it, changed forever.

I visited the Pentagon a few days after September 11, and I still remember so vividly the smell of terror surrounding the entire building and complex. I was angry that such a brutal act of violence was committed against innocent people.

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.

Like all Americans, I will never forget where I was the morning of the 9/11 attacks.

I am one of the 11.5% of New Yorkers who remain traumatized by the events of September 11.

I'm a New York kid, so when I saw that plane that hit the first building, I suspected it was terrorism - blue sky day.

I remember... seeing the first plane go into the towers and thinking: 'It's a beautiful day. Somebody really must have gotten off course to have the plane go into the towers.'

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 was stricken by news and television pictures coming from the United States this morning. It is impossible to fully comprehend the evil that would have conjured up such a cowardly and depraved assault upon thousands of innocent people. There can be no cause or grievance that could ever justify such unspeakable violence. Indeed, such an attack is an assault not only on the targets but an offense against the freedom and rights of all civilized nations.

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