Mustafa Ali Quotes

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon shook our nation to the core. Americans were deeply frightened, sad, and angry, and they rallied around a President who, at the time, showed impressive certitude and calm.

I think 9/11 affected everybody in one way or another.

Like most New Yorkers I was shell-shocked immediately after 9/11 and couldn't put into words what I was feeling.

I was a little bit perturbed by the whole big grief machine that grew out of 9/11. I knew that I wanted to write about it, but I wasn't sure about how to go about it.

I had just moved to New York in September 2001, and immediately 9/11 happened, and of course it completely changed the city and everybody who lived there.

The first time I realised I was patriotic was after September 11th.

9/11 did not really impact me, but I remember sitting in my 6th grade math class. I remember the teachers just being in a panic and turning on our TVs and I remember the impact in the look of just disbelief and sadness and shock that was on my teacher's face.

Initially, the horrific images of September 11th triggered an enormous wave of solidarity.

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 suffered a terrible blow on 11 September 2001. We responded with fear and anger. A fight-or-flight response is adaptive in any species. For us, given our power, fight was the only response we could imagine.

9/11, the wars and terrorism have affected all of us in different ways: people who lost family on 9/11, the people who lost family in the wars and people who lost family in various terrorist attacks that have occurred since.

The devastating punch we took on September 11th still reverberates throughout American society.

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.

Shock, confusion, fear, anger, grief, and defiance. On Sept. 11, 2001, and for the three days following the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, President George W. Bush led with raw emotion that reflected the public's whipsawing stages of acceptance.

I was in NYC during 9/11; it happened on a Tuesday, I was on stage Thursday. It was a small crowd, but it took about 10 days and comedy clubs were packed.

In the wake of the events of 11 September 2001, it now seems clear that the shock of the attacks was exploited in America.

For weeks after 9/11 you could smell the dust and pulverised concrete in New York, and the National Guard came in, so there was a military presence on the streets. It was intense. Overwhelming. Heartbreaking.

Sept. 11 jolted America out of its second gilded age.

After the attacks on September 11th, we all learned lessons.

Sept. 11, 2001, still feels like a blur to me. I wish it were simply a bad, re-occurring dream, but unfortunately it isn't.

America is a remarkable country, but I have a feeling that it's a different country after 9/11.

After 9/11, you kind of didn't want to open up your heart to more pain.

When 9/11 happened, the world, certainly in the United States of America, there was a unity. There was this sense of unity. And I have to say just from a personal level, it really felt good. We all felt the same way.

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.

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.