Hugh Shelton Quotes

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.

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.

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

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 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.

[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.

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

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.

September 11 stands on its own as a terrible tragedy.

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

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.

We all lived through September 11. I was here at the Capitol that day. I saw the evil of our enemies written in the smoke rising above the Pentagon.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Speaking as a New Yorker, I found it (9/11 event] a shocking and terrifying event, particularly the scale of it. At bottom, it was an implacable desire to do harm to innocent people.

I didn't feel up to writing about 9/11. If I were to write about it, it would take me years.

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.

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.