“I let the Lord heal me. He’s my doctor.”
— Genelle Guzman-McMillan, the last person found alive in the debris of the World Trade Center, to a doctor about serious health conditions discovered after Sept. 11, in Time
“The biggest lesson I learned from all this is accepting help. I’ve always been the one who rushed in, who sent packages. … Having the slate wiped clean, letting people help me, was a good lesson.”
— New Yorker Rachel Allgood, who lost her business, apartment and most of her belongings during the terrorist attacks, in Rosie
“I don’t hate the people [Al Qaeda] who did this, I just believe that they made their decisions and will have to pay the consequences with God.”
— New York City firefighter Regina Wilson, who came close to losing her life at ground zero, in Honey
“For me to get on a train, I’m still scared. You still think it’s going to explode. That’s what 9/11 did to the [grieving] families.”
— Kristen Breitweiser, whose husband Ron died at work in the World Trade Center, in Vanity Fair
“Americans don’t pay enough attention to world events, and it has a lot to do with education and the media. Even after 9/11, it was striking to us that Americans asked, `How did this happen?’ but never, `Why?'”
— French news anchor and author Christine Ockrent, in More
“They say patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. I am not patriotic in that manner, but I am vigilant, and it all adds up to racial profiling. I hope I’m going to get over this.”
— syndicated newspaper columnist Liz Smith, on her negative feelings after 9/11, in O, The Oprah Magazine
“So we looked at our lives a little harder, called our friends a little more often … and we obsessed about the stock market in lieu of soul searching.”
— writer Anna Quindlen, (right) on 9/11, in Newsweek
