September 11th Quotes

“When nearly 3,000 people died on 9/11, it was enough to create massive change in our society. Over ten times as many people die from guns each year. Where is the social change?”
― DaShanne Stokes

“The lives of the thirty thousand children who die of starvation each day is like 6 september 11ths every single day, a silent tsunami that happens every week.”
― Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

“If there is any solace to be found in the carnage of September 11th, may I find it in understanding that the potential to do great good can handily rival the tendency to carry out great evil. And out of that understanding may I commit in my own life to make certain that in such a critical rivalry I will ensure that towers will never fall because of me, but people will be raised up due to me.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, intact for over 200 years, guaranteed that the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath of affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. After September 11th, 2001, those were just words on an old piece of paper, no longer a restriction of the Government’s overreaching power to shake down its subjects.”
― Kenneth G. Eade, A Patriot's Act

“September 14, 2001

What killed me, what killed many of us, was the very end: "My home sweet home." Because, whatever else Paris might be, this _is not_ our home, it's just the place where we have our jobs or apartments. How could we have forgotten that?”
― David Sedaris, Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002

“Israeli intelligence, on the other hand, relied mostly on human resources—had countless spies in mosques, Islamic organizations, and leadership roles; and had no problem recruiting even the most dangerous terrorists. They knew they had to have eyes and ears on the inside, along with minds that understood motives and emotions and could connect the dots. America understood neither Islamic culture nor its ideology. That, combined with open borders and lax security made it a much softer target than Israel.”
― Mosab Hassan Yousef, Son of Hamas

“it strikes me that the spirit of the Fourth, this year, was used up by September's end and fell like an early leaf.”
― William H. Gass, Life Sentences: Literary Judgments and Accounts

“Ground Zero in the early 2000s was the best place in the nation to sob. Anywhere else, any time else, and people assumed you were mentally unfit. Here, among the dust that may have as likely been a photocopier as a middle manager, we could be pure. In the city, but not of the city.”
― Thomm Quackenbush, Holidays with Bigfoot

“The closest my generation will ever come to the spirit of the original Woodstock was September 12th, 2001. For a few weeks, we believed that we were integral members of the brotherhood of Man. It didn't matter who our neighbors were (aside from a few isolated cases of the paranoia-induced beatings of Sikh children). We wanted to make sure they were holding up so that we could feel that they wanted to know the same about us. We needed a national tragedy beyond our reckoning to shake us loose from the mundane, a trip far more heinous than anything the infamous brown acid would have given us. Woodstock existed for people on the brink of seeing what life meant. September 12th was in acknowledgment for how that life could end, and the almost guilty thrill that we made it through.”
― Thomm Quackenbush, Holidays with Bigfoot

“Never in her life had she thought that she would end up in jail unless she had committed a crime. So why was she here? ... She hadn’t been convicted. She had been abducted.
This wasn’t justice. It was revenge.”
― Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America

“The days of passengers sitting still during plane hijackings ended with 9/11. Before then, the worst that would have happened was that you'd probably spend a few days on a runway in a banana republic while the hijackers made their demands. On September 11th, 2001, it was just fireballs of instant death as the planes got deliberately crashed by the terrorists. From that point on, passivity was never an option again.”
― Stewart Stafford

“In the weeks to follow, the Shin Bet would begin searching for lessons to be found in the rubble of what would come to be known simply as 9/11. Why had the U.S. intelligence services not been able to prevent the disaster? For one thing, they operated independently and competitively. For another, they relied mostly on technology and rarely collaborated with terrorists. Those tactics may have been fine in the Cold War, but it’s pretty tough to combat fanatical ideals with technology.”
― Mosab Hassan Yousef, Son of Hamas

“The Edge of Reason by Stewart Stafford

I do not want to die or take my own life,
I cling to the outside of skyscraper metal,
Thick, choking smoke rakes my shoulder,
Scorching flames lash my back and legs.

I showered, dressed and went to work,
I arrived early, said hello, found my desk,
Then the building shifted, smiles faded,
Everything changed, and here we are.

God, please take me quickly, I beg you,
Bless my loved ones, I hope they understand,
A Rorschach test for shocked rubberneckers,
I let the air pressure suck me out and drop.

The initial relief of vacating impossibility,
Turns to violent buffeting in wind currents,
Clothes ripped off as I spin, falling faster,
Crowds point, the ground rushes towards me.

© 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford