Jennifer Egan Quotes

We saw when those World Trade towers came down what these terrorists will do.

I was sitting in my office when someone called to tell me two light planes had collided with the World Trade Centre. I turned on my television; before long, there was this procession of people of all kinds walking up the street. What I remember most was the silence of that crowd; there was no sound.

Before September 11, 2001, it was responsible for more American deaths than any other terrorist organization.

The attack of September 11 can be described as a very intense “Faith-Based Initiative.”

Here is America struck by God Almighty in one of its vital organs, so that its greatest buildings are destroyed. God has blessed a group of vanguard Muslims, the forefront of Islam, to destroy America.

9/11. For the West the attack on New York's World Trade Centre conjured up a terrifying new enemy: Islamic fundamentalism. For Muslims it appeared to open the floodgates to a new wave of hatred and discrimination. Suddenly, it seemed, racists had license to attack them, police to harass them, politicians and journalists to revile their religion.

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 was the only outsider to visit the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden lived before the Pakistani military demolished it.

If the country is ever attacked as it was on 9/11, we all respond with a sense of urgency.

I don't necessarily buy the story that Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11.

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.

When news of the first plane's hitting the World Trade Center reached them, bin Laden's followers exploded with joy. But shrewder members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan realized that the attacks might not be the stunning victory that bin Laden, and many in the West, took them to be.

We're downtown New Yorkers and had very close proximity to the events of September 11th. Like everybody on the island of Manhattan, we were impacted by it in so many ways in terms of what we saw, what we felt, what our daily experience became in the wake of it.

As tragic as Benghazi was, its importance pales next to killing Osama bin Laden.

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

People assumed we called the record 'Murray Street' because of its proximity to the World Trade Centre, but that wasn't it at all. Before the attacks, I had simply been walking around taking pictures of things, and I had this photograph of the street sign. We felt it was somewhat evocative and decided to use it on the back cover of the album.

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.

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 a fascination with Flight 93. My emotions are mixed: awe, gratitude, fear, heartache, pride - even, in some ways, guilt.

Oh, indeed there is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11. It's not that Saddam Hussein was somehow himself and his regime involved in 9/11, but, if you think about what caused 9/11, it is the rise of ideologies of hatred that lead people to drive airplanes into buildings in New York.

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

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.

The view... from my apartment... was the World Trade Center... and now it's gone, they attacked it. This symbol of American ingenuity, and strength, and labor, and imagination and commerce, and it is gone. But you know what? You know what the view is now? The Statue of Liberty. The view from the South of Manhattan is now the Statue of Liberty. You can't beat that!

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.