Quotes & Sayings About September 11 2001

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. — Cassandra Clare

On September 11 2001, America felt its vulnerability even to threats that gather on the other side of the Earth. We resolved then, and we are resolved today, to confront every threat from any source that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America. — George W. Bush

Just after the 11 September 2001 attacks, the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk (who later won the Nobel Prize) observed, in Istanbul, the ordinary and peaceable inhabitants of the city displaying great joy at the collapse of the Twin Towers. What was the explanation? 'It is neither Islam nor even poverty itself that directly engenders support for terrorists whose ferocity and ingenuity are unprecedented in human history; it is, rather, the crushing humiliation that has infected the third-world countries. — Tzvetan Todorov

We're going to find out who did this and we're going after the bastards [referring to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon] — Orrin Hatch

Fox News has learned some United States investigators believe that there are Israelis again very much engaged in spying in and on the United States, who may have known things they didn't tell us before September 11, 2001. — Brit Hume

There was a story that was widely circulated a few days after the attacks of September 11, 2001, that illustrates our dilemma. A Native American grandfather was speaking to his grandson about violence and cruelty in the world and how it comes about. He said it was as if two wolves were fighting in his heart. One wolf was vengeful and angry, and the other wolf was understanding and kind. The young man asked his grandfather which wolf would win the fight in his heart. And the grandfather answered, "The one that wins will be the one I choose to feed." So — Pema Chodron

Mr. Speaker, on September 11, 2001, the United States was attacked, and Britain stood with us. This was not only an attack against America, but against the civilized world; and Britain understood this. — Vito Fossella

The U.S. has already suffered a devastating attack on September 11, 2001, and may again become a target. — Linda Chavez

Then all at once our personal and political quarrels were made very abruptly to converge. In the special edition of the London Review of Books published to mark the events of September 11, 2001, Edward painted a picture of an almost fascist America where Arab and Muslim citizens were being daily terrorized by pogroms, these being instigated by men like Paul Wolfowitz who had talked of 'ending' the regimes that sheltered Al Quaeda. Again, I could hardly credit that these sentences were being produced by a cultured person, let alone printed by a civilized publication. — Christopher Hitchens

Since September 11, 2001, the powerful coalition of nations, led by the United States, has seen many successes against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. It is imperative that we remain united and steadfast in the quest to defeat terrorism around the world. — Kenny Marchant

If the events of September 11, 2001, have proven anything, it's that the terrorists can attack us, but they can't take away what makes us American
our freedom, our liberty, our civil rights. No, only Attorney General John Ashcroft can do that. — Jon Stewart

I couldn't follow the events of September 11 because I was proofreading a novel I'd just completed - on Islam and its quarrel with the West - that I'd promised, six months earlier, to deliver to my editor on September 12, 2001. — Pico Iyer

While it may be true that the UAE has been an ally since the September 11, 2001, attacks, the American people know it has also harbored and aided some of the al Qaeda agents who were involved in that attack. — Bart Gordon

It is very clear from the historical record that without British help neither Wahhabism nor the House of Saud would be in existence today. Wahhabism is a British-inspired fundamentalist movement in Islam. Through its defense of the House of Saud, the US also supports Wahhabism directly and indirectly regardless of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Wahhabism is violent, right wing, ultra-conservative, rigid, extremist, reactionary, sexist, and intolerant ... — Andre Vltchek

On September 11, 2001, Russia's then-president, Vladimir Putin, called U.S. President George W. Bush - making Putin the first international leader to speak with Bush after the attacks. — Sergei Lavrov

The tarot card 'The Tower' seemed a chilling reflection of the events of September 11, 2001. — Neil Peart

The world changed on September 11, 2001. — Christopher Dodd

mandate was sweeping.The law directed us to investigate "facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001," including those relating — Anonymous

After we were hit on September 11, 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weeks later, on October 26 2001, the U.S.A. Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that had little chance to debate it; many said that they scarcely had time to read it. — Naomi Wolf

Here's a little thought experiment. Imagine that, on September 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers came down, the President of the United States was not George W. Bush, but Ann Coulter. What would have happened then? On September 12, President Coulter would have ordered the US military forces to drop 35 nuclear bombs throughout the Middle East, killing all of our actual and potential enemy combatants, and their wives and children. On September 13, the war would have been over and won, without a single American life lost. — Satoshi Kanazawa

There is a direct line relationship between what happened in Afghanistan in the work up to 11 September 2001 and what we're doing in Afghanistan today. — John R. Allen

The people and the mindset that killed 3,000 of our fellow citizens on September 11 2001, would have killed not 3,000, but 300,000 if they could have or 3 million or 30 million. We need to do everything we can within our value systems and legal structures to make sure that doesn't happen. — Tim Pawlenty

In the sublime days before 11 September 2001, when the powerful were routinely attacking and terrorising the weak, and those dying were black or brown-skinned non-people living in faraway places such as Zaire and Guatemala, there was no terrorism. When the weak attacked the powerful, spectacularly on 9/11, there was terrorism. — John Pilger

Consistent with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act, 50 U.S.C. 1622(d), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency previously declared on September 14, 2001, in Proclamation 7463, with respect to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the continuing and immediate threat of further attacks on the United States. Because the terrorist threat continues, the national emergency declared on September 14, 2001, and the powers and authorities adopted to deal with that emergency must continue in effect beyond September 14, 2010. — Barack Obama

Let me close as I did in Gander on September 11, 2002 when I went to that community to thank the people of Gander and the people of Canada for the overwhelming support and help that was given to us in the wake of those attacks on September 11, 2001. — Paul Cellucci

Congress has never since effectively asserted itself to stop a president with a bead on war. It was true of George Herbert Walker Bush. It was true of Bill Clinton. And by September 11, 2001, even if there had been real resistance to Vice President Cheney and President George W. Bush starting the next war (or two), there were no institutional barriers strong enough to have realistically stopped them. By 9/11, the war-making authority in the United States had become, for all intents and purposes, uncontested and unilateral: one man's decision to make. It wasn't supposed to be like this. — Rachel Maddow

Certainly, the murder of civilians for political statement did not just begin on September 11, 2001. — Cliff Stearns

The 'Cold War' impinged on the daily lives of Americans. The wars after 11 September 2001 have been fought without the general American population having to make any sacrifices. It goes on, and so do we. — Stanley Hauerwas

Scriptural determinism" sounds like an arcane academic paradigm, but it is deployed by nonacademics in a consequential way. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as Americans tried to fathom the forces at work, sales of several kinds of books rose. Some people bought books about Islam, some bought books about the recent history of the Middle East, and some bought translations of the Koran. And of course some bought more than one kind of book. But people who bought only translations of the Koran were showing signs of scriptural determinism. They seemed to think that you could understand the terrorists' motivation simply by reading their ancient scriptures - just search the Koran for passages advocating violence against infidels and, having succeeded, end the analysis, content that you'd found the essential cause of 9/11. — Robert Wright

We have come together with a unity of purpose because our nation demands it. September 11, 2001, was a day of unprecedented shock and suffering in the history of the United States.The nation was unprepared. How did this happen, and how can we avoid such tragedy — Anonymous

September 11 The morning of September 11, 2001, I was in Los Angeles. Like many people, I could not believe what I was watching on TV. It was heartbreaking to see all the misery and even more heartbreaking because it was happening to New York, which will always hold a special place in my heart. At the time, my younger brother, Kashi, was working near the Twin Towers, so my first instinct was to call and make sure he was okay. Once that had been confirmed I drove around Los Angeles visiting my family, in shock. As the — Maz Jobrani

Eisenhower was less deferential to the military than he seemed likely to be, Kennedy was not at all beholden to the pope, George W. Bush was smarter than portrayed and Barack Obama has not led a charge from the left - least of all on behalf of the civil liberties that have eroded since September 11, 2001. — David K. Shipler

Right after September 11, 2001, there weren't really any blogs in China, but there were a lot of Chinese chatrooms - and there were a lot of conversations in which Chinese netizens were saying things like, 'served them right.' That was definitely not the official Chinese government policy - which condemned the terrorists. — Rebecca MacKinnon

Since September 11, 2001, the real world has become too scary for a lot of people to be with - all the time. — Chuck Palahniuk

Americans long to be united. After 9/11, we all just wanted to be one nation. Not a single American on September the 12, 2001, cared who won the next presidential election. — William J. Clinton

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. — Michael Mandelbaum

The mobilisation which Bush has been able to perform since 11 September 2001 has to be fought - at least by Americans - in the name of a wise, honourable and democratic patriotism. — Todd Gitlin

Other than hunting down the terrorists responsible for the attacks on September 11, 2001, Amerine suspected that the United States had no comprehensive plan, military or otherwise. — Eric Blehm

September 11, 2001, revealed heroism in ordinary people who might have gone through their lives never called upon to demonstrate the extent of their courage. — Geraldine Brooks

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. — Yochai Benkler

I was just about to begin writing 'Mirror Mirror', within about a week of it, when September 11, 2001 happened. I found myself incapable of caring about fiction-making for a number of months. — Gregory Maguire

You don't bargain with terrorists. You don't appease terrorists. And anybody who believes that this is about something we've done has to ask themselves why it is, on September 11, 2001, before we were in Afghanistan, before we were in Iraq, he committed a dastardly attack killing over 3,000 people. I mean, this is not a matter of negotiation; it's a matter of victory. — Michael Chertoff

The terrible state of public education has paid huge dividends in ignorance. Huge. We now have a country that can be told blatant lies
easily checkable, blatant lies
and I'm not talking about the covert workings of the CIA. When we have a terrorist attack, on September 11, 2001 with 19 men
15 of them are Saudis
and five minutes later the whole country thinks they're from Iraq
how can you have faith in the public? This is an easily checkable fact. The whole country is like the O. J. Simpson jurors. — Fran Lebowitz

On September 11, 2001, we thought we were going to be attacked many, many times between then and now. We haven't been. I believe we had a president who made the right decision at the right time ... to put us on offense against terrorists. — Rudy Giuliani

At least ten times as many people died from preventable, poverty-related diseases on September 11, 2011, as died in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on that black day. The terrorist attacks led to trillions of dollars being spent on the 'war on terrorism' and on security measures that have inconvenienced every air traveller since then. The deaths caused by poverty were ignored. So whereas very few people have died from terrorism since September 11, 2001, approximately 30,000 people died from poverty-related causes on September 12, 2001, and on every day between then and now, and will die tomorrow. Even when we consider larger events like the Asian tsunami of 2004, which killed approximately 230,000 people, or the 2010 earthquake in Haiti that killed up to 200,000, we are still talking about numbers that represent just one week's toll for preventable, poverty-related deaths - and that happens fifty-two weeks in every year. — Peter Singer

Legislation passed in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 enhanced our intelligence capabilities and strengthened our national defense, but until now our nation's immigration policies have not adapted to the needs of a post-September 11th world. — Chris Chocola

Since September 11, 2001, many in this nation and this Congress have a deeper appreciation for the importance of the sacrifices made by our law enforcement officers. — Jerry Costello

I am troubled that someone would sell a book, trading on their service as a government insider with access to our nation's most valuable intelligence, in order to profit from the suffering that this nation endured on September 11, 2001. — Bill Frist

One could dismiss the zombie trend as merely feeding a mass public that craves the strange and bizarre. Such an explanation would be only skin-deep. Popular culture often provides a window into the subliminal or unstated fears of citizens, and zombies are no exception. Some cultural commentators argue that the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks are a primary cause for renewed interest in the living dead, and the numbers appear to back up this assertion. — Daniel Drezner

In some ways, September 11, 2001, seems a long time ago. Yet we have done so much in only a few years, and we will continue to do so in the future, to prevent such attacks on America. — George Allen

I was imprisoned in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks, when Egypt's state security was rounding people up in unprecedented numbers. — Maajid Nawaz

George W. Bush's legacy will always be defined by the events of September
11, 2001, which provided him with something of a delayed mandate.
Without 9/11, there would have been no unconstitutional Patriot Act, no
Homeland Security Department, no decade-long occupation of Iraq and
Afghanistan, and no open-ended "war on terror." As such, it is important to
look closely at exactly what really happened on 9/11/2001. — Donald Jeffries

Who can ever forget George W. Bush, in the days and weeks after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, exhorting people not to be afraid, to get out and do the right thing, the patriotic thing, the one thing that could get the economy moving forward again: start shopping. — Richard Florida

A Greek philosopher said, 'All men think it is only the other man who is mortal'. The way we scurry about accumulating things is testimony to our unspoken doctrine that we are exceptions to the law of death. The events of September 11, 2001, were a shocking reminder to millions of Americans of something we should have already understood - our mortality. — Randy Alcorn

Belloc led the charge in his critique of this misguided sense of superiority and myopic view of progress. But it was he alone among historians, social commentators, and counter-cultural voices who predicted that Islam - or as he called it, "Mohammedanism" - would rise again and, as it had in the past, harness the technology of the West as a weapon to turn back on the West and crush it by degrees. After September 11, 2001, no one is surprised to learn that Islam is turning the West's superiority back on itself; what is surprising is that a lone historian and essayist saw this coming in the 1930s. That he captivates and places the reader in the middle of the action is an added bonus to the prophetic vision of what embroils our age. — Hilaire Belloc

That day, my first day on the job, was September 11, 2001! I was actually being recognized by Switzerland the very day that the World Trade Center was hit. — Mercer Reynolds

In some parts of the world, what you are doing is already apparent. According to the World Health Organization, the warming of the planet caused an additional 140,000 deaths in 2004, as compared with the number of deaths there would have been had average global temperatures remained as they were during the period 1961 to 1990. This means that climate change is already causing, every week, as many deaths as occurred in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. — Peter Singer

We cannot allow Afghanistan to become again a haven for terrorists who inspire, plan and provide support for attacks like those of 11 September 2001, of 7 July 2005 in London, and more. — Bob Ainsworth

The September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon prompted a fundamental shift in the American government's approach to Islamic terrorism. — Amy Waldman

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. — Mike Pence

But through world wars and a Great Depression, through painful social upheaval and a Cold War, and now through the attacks of September 11, 2001, our Nation has indeed survived. — Nick Rahall

Tragedies are always discussed as if they took place in a void, but actually each tragedy is conditioned by its setting, local and global. The events of 11 September 2001 are not exception. — Tariq Ali

September 11, 2001: Citizens of the U.S., besieged by terror's sting,
rose up, weeping glory, as if on eagles' wings.
from the poem Angel of Remembrance: Candles for September 11, 2001 — Aberjhani

America is stronger than ever. We will forever remember those we lost on September 11, 2001. In honoring their memory, we will remain true to our commitment to freedom and democracy. — Evan Bayh

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I watched helplessly as the Bush administration led America into a strategic blunder of historic proportions. It became painfully obvious that the executive branch of our government did not trust its military. It relied instead on a neoconservative ideology developed by men and women with little, if any, military experience. Some senior military leaders did not challenge civilian decision makers at the appropriate times, and the courageous few who did take a stand were subsequently forced out of the service. — Ricardo Sanchez

After September 11, 2001, I was feeling like I really wanted more understanding between cultures. It seemed to me that so much of what happened on September 11 was because people didn't understand each other and were suspicious of each other. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Since September 11 2001, editors in America have faced some excruciating choices, as the attempt to wage a war against a new kind of enemy sometimes strained the boundaries of our laws and values. — Bill Keller

beyond their right - and now they would be made to pay for it. Envy was being acted out, as never before.'62 It led to the murder of six million Jews in the Second World War. Today, I find envy laced through the statements of European and Indian intellectuals about America. Arundhati Roy's essay after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington is an example. Like many anti-American intellectuals writing in the days after the attack, Roy claimed that it was the direct result of American foreign policy - the implication being that America somehow deserved what had happened. There is widespread anti-American sentiment in the world which regards the United States as arrogant, indifferent to human suffering, consumerist, and contemptuous of international law. Much of this is probably correct, but I find that some of it is inspired by envy of America's success. — Gurcharan Das

Some readers may have noticed an icy little missive from Noam Chomsky ["Letters," December 3], repudiating the very idea that he and I had disagreed on the "roots" of September 11. I rush to agree. Here is what he told his audience at MIT on October 11:
I'll talk about the situation in Afghanistan ... Looks like what's happening is some sort of silent genocide ... It indicates that whatever, what will happen we don't know, but plans are being made and programs implemented on the assumption that they may lead to the death of several million people in the next - in the next couple of weeks ... very casually with no comment ... we are in the midst of apparently trying to murder three or four million people.
Clever of him to have spotted that (his favorite put-down is the preface 'Turning to the facts ... ') and brave of him to have taken such a lonely position. As he rightly insists, our disagreements are not really political. — Christopher Hitchens

This resolution is further proof that Congress stands firmly behind our troops and remains resolved to pursue those responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, until they are discovered, detained, and punished. — John Doolittle

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

Since the attack on the United States on September 11 2001, and the US retaliation in Afghanistan and Iraq, there must be few people who have not felt a twinge of nostalgia for the cold war. — James Buchan

original plan to write about September 11, 2001, in the I Survived series. But over the past two years, I have received more than a thousand e-mails from kids asking me to write about this topic. At school visits, there are always kids who raise their hands and ask, "Will you be writing about 9/11?" At first, my answer was always no. I was shocked that you would be so curious about that terrible day, which I had been trying to forget since it happened. I have friends who lost family members on 9/11 and others — Lauren Tarshis

Incidentally, over half the illegal population supposedly came to America after September 11, 2001.95 That's to say, they broke into a country on Code Orange alert. Odd that. — Mark Steyn

Until al Qaeda attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, Hizballah had killed more Americans than had any terrorist group in history. — Robert M. Gates

It was Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001, not Saddam Hussein and Iraq. — Peter DeFazio

Or take the opportunity offered to the United States following the attacks of September 11, 2001, when both Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mohammed Khatami condemned the Sunni al Qaeda terrorism in no uncertain terms and Iranians held vigils for the victims in the streets of Tehran...or the help Iran gave to the US-led coalition against the Taliban later that year; or the Iranian offer for substantial talks following the fall of Baghdad in the Spring of 2003. — Robert D. Kaplan

There will be no going back to the era before September 11th, 2001, to false comfort in a dangerous world. — George W. Bush