Mercer Reynolds Quotes

Nobody should underestimate how much the world changed on the 11th of September 2001.

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

September 11 stands on its own as a terrible tragedy.

'The Panorama' is also the last place anywhere in New York where the World Trade Center still stands, whole, as it stood in the early morning of September 11. I can also see the corner where I saw the first tower fall and howled out loud. Seeing the buildings again here is uplifting, healing.

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.

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.

I remember watching the Twin Towers collapse. Because it was another country and looked like a film, I just sort of thought, 'Oh.' I didn't think that much. Then three days later, it hit me. I was in a terrible state, and I was tearful for three or four days.

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.

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.

Whether we knew many who died on September 11 or personally knew none, we all lost something on that day. Innocence. Security. A trust that our homeland would always be safe.

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.

Some words having to do with the death of the people in the World Trade Center attack had been added, and when I got to it, I had this overwhelmingly emotional experience. I struggled to get through the words; tears were streaming down my cheeks.

On 11 September, I was living in Greenwich Village, New York; my children learned to tell south from north by looking at the World Trade Center.

On a Tuesday, September 11th, 1973, we had the military coup in Chile that forced me to leave my country eventually. And then, on a Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, we had the terrorist attack in the United States.

We live in downtown Manhattan and we have pretty big windows that looked right at the World Trade Center. I was home along with Kai and we watched it all happen. I was holding him in my arms and we were looking out the window when the second plane hit.

The world changed on September 11, 2001.

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.

Perhaps September 11 could be called the first historic world event in the strictest sense: the impact, the explosion, the slow collapse - a gruesome reality literally took place in front of a global public.

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.

You cannot read any image of the World Trade Center without thinking of 9/11.

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.

Like every American, I will never forget where I was on the morning of September 11, 2001. As a member of Congress from Indiana, that day my duties took me to Capitol Hill and to sights and sounds I will never forget.

When I designed my loft, I literally framed the World Trade Center as a picture postcard I could see from my bed. I no longer have that image, and I mourn it.