"I was actually moving the week of 9/11 and I just wanted to find a way to get out of work so I could pack. When the attack happened, I was thinking, This is so cool. I can go to the dentist and still have time to get everything done." -- Ruth Wagner, 28, an editor in New York

"It's gorgeous out. Turn the television off." -- Author Barbara Garson's response to her husband's phone call telling her that the towers had been attacked.

"Thank goodness they got those buildings. I've always hated them! They're so ugly." -- New York woman, overheard in London on the day of the attacks

"[My boyfriend] is a surfer and when he was dismissed from work, he was stressing not about the attacks but about how to get to the beach. He left me in Manhattan to go surfing on Long Island." -- Wagner, on how her friends reacted

"We walked to [my friend's] apartment in SoHo at about 10 p.m. on Thursday the 13th. The streets below 14th were deserted of cars, and for the most part, of people. A light haze of smoke and dust hung in the air. It was still and warm and surreal. And incredibly beautiful. I wished that New York could be like that more often. How many times will the middle of Broadway feel as if it were a country back road?" -- Kimberly Oliver, 33, a Manhattan marketing consultant

"Jeez, I'm a New Yorker. And now I'll never get to go up in the Twin Towers." -- Wall Street worker, name withheld, in a bar during the week of the attacks

"Best special effects I ever saw." -- Two teens on a corner in downtown Manhattan, just hours after the collapse

"You should take a picture." -- Novelist Colson Whitehead, to his wife, while watching the towers burn with a large crowd in Brooklyn

"What a great fucking action scene." -- New York film producer, describing the attacks less than a month after they occurred

"I'm sorry to say it, but it was the most exciting day of my career in journalism. It was really fuckin' fun." -- A New York reporter

"On the big day, my husband [a journalist] had to go to work immediately. He was covering the story all day and all night. I was sent home from work. I was glued to the television all day, dialing the numbers of all my relatives in New York (I'm from there originally), and of course getting through to no one. I was scared and alone and panicking.

"I called up my boyfriend -- Do I have to use the word 'lover'? It's so cheesy -- who was also sent home from work. We went to a local Chili's, drank gin-and-tonics and watched the TV. Then we got a hotel room together and in between making love, we watched the events unfolding on the TV.

"So basically I used the day off as an excuse to get a hotel room with my boyfriend. But the truth is I was scared and devastated by the events and it felt right to spend it with someone I loved.

" I've never told anyone this and it feels great to finally let it out. Especially since I know for the rest of my life that every year when 9/11 comes I'll think of how I spent it having sex with my secret boyfriend. I don't regret doing it, though." -- Texas woman, name, age and occupation withheld

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