I think people are generally slow to realize that they are in a life-or-death situation. I’m not talking about just the victims here, but rather about everyone accustomed to living in safety. We’re so used to making choices where death is not a potential outcome that we simply don’t take the possibility into account.

I was in downtown Manhattan on 9/11, close enough to the World Trade Center that I felt the building I was in shake when the towers were hit. The funny thing is that I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t even horrified. The whole thing didn’t feel real. (Now I know that I was in absolutely no danger, but I couldn’t have known that at the time.)