Jon Meacham Quotes

I don't want to be callous about it, but we all seemed to get over the Oklahoma bombing pretty quickly, and we're never going to get over 9/11.

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.

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.

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

September 11th was a moment when America had the sympathy of the world.

I had friends who died in the 9/11 tragedy; some of my friends lost family members in the aftermath of Godhra.

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.

The last four years have not diluted the memory or weakened the resolve of our citizens. Four years later, our hearts still hurt for the families whose loved ones were murdered that day.

The 9/11 strikes left an indelible impact on our minds, but in relative terms, the scale of casualties actually wasn't all that high.

God bless and help all the victims and patriots of 9/11, from the families of Flight 93 passengers to those who were in the Pentagon and Twin Towers as well as others who have fought and presently fight the war on terror.

I think of events like the Challenger and 9/11 - events that move us so much that we never quite get over them. So it's important to go back and relive those feelings in order to remember how important those events were to us.

If you ask me what I think about going to work every day, it's 9/11 and preventing another 9/11. There were too many people I knew.

Air India happened when I was about five years old but... I've attended memorials with respect to the victims and the families, the survivors of this horrible and heinous act. I've talked about how everyone denounces it.

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

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.

We always knew how to honor fallen soldiers. They were killed for our sake, they went out on our mission. But how are we to mourn a random man killed in a terrorist attack while sitting in a cafe? How do you mourn a housewife who got on a bus and never returned?

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.

Unfortunately, man, a lot of places in America have to deal with unnecessary violence. Somebody like me who knows it firsthand and could relate... I had a best friend killed, plenty other friends killed. I been through it. I seen it.

If the September 11 terror attack is supposed to constitute a caesura in world history, it must be able to stand comparison to other events of world historical impact.

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

Sometimes when I'm watching television and something, an image, will come on that has to do with 9/11 or some of these families telling their stories, or children talking about drawing pictures of airplanes flying into towers, you know, I find myself still choking up.

And, unlike the earlier bombing on the World Trade Center, a major landmark and symbol of the strength of the financial world was, not just damaged but, totally destroyed.

In the context of September 11, there were so many that lost their lives that - how do you single out one person? There were so many acts of heroism that day from so many people, whether it be firemen and police officers in New York and our agents also.

How could I share with you how I felt when two towers that I loved, two pieces of steel and glass and concrete fell down, when actually they took with them thousands of human lives? That is the actual tragedy. But those towers were almost human for me. I was in love with them, and that's why I married them with a tight rope.

The parallels between 9/11 and Pearl Harbor are striking. In each instance there were warning signs before the attack, and in each instance our government failed to connect the dots.