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You don't want to pretend that 9/11 ended in 2002 with the first anniversary. So how do you frame the post-9/11 world and play a productive role in discussing it?

September 11 reinforced for me that whatever I'm writing about, it better be something that really matters to me because we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. And for me it's stories about people in pain in New York.

Sometimes when I'm watching television and something, an image, will come on that has to do with 9/11 or some of these families telling their stories, or children talking about drawing pictures of airplanes flying into towers, you know, I find myself still choking up.

I will never forget the bright September day, standing at my desk in the White House, when my young assistant said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center - and then a second one - and a third, the Pentagon.

I don't believe that the Bush Administration had something to do with September 11th. I do believe that there were a lot of warning signals, but I don't think they were ignored on purpose - Bush just wanted to go to the ranch for a month.

There are terrible, terrible memories of September 11th, things that I saw, people that I lost, the devastation, the identification of bodies. I mean, all these memories come back to you at different times. And then the other side of it this tremendous response with the firefighters and the police officers saving people, the rescue workers.

What happened on September 11th is at least, theoretically, small stuff compared to what can happen.

None of us, remember, knew that 9/11 was gonna happen. We didn't live in a state of anxiety and fear about Osama Bin Laden. The CIA might have, and they failed to prevent it. But the general public didn't have any knowledge. Now we have knowledge of it, and it's a very clear and present danger in our lives.

It's especially important since September 11 for people to be trained for the unexpected. We want to try to make sure people are safe.

I visited the Pentagon a few days after September 11, and I still remember so vividly the smell of terror surrounding the entire building and complex. I was angry that such a brutal act of violence was committed against innocent people.