[page 15-16]
...It's hard to overemphasize the respect accorded to engineers in much of the Middle East...Within the engineering department, the highest-scoring students were assigned to the architecture program...for the first time in his life, Amir [Mohammed Atta] did not excel. Architecture, more than most creative disciplines, is a blend of the utterly pragmatic-what type of glass do you specify to keep heat out and let light in?-and the artistic-in what vocabulary should a house speak? Amir shone at the analytical subjects....

"He was a very clever person in mathematics, physical structures, less good in design and the more artistic aspects...In the third year, when we studied soils, street plans, and steel, something more concrete, he excelled...you would recognize him more as an engineer than an architect....
...
[page 5]
"The jihad for God's cause is hard for the infidels, because our religion has ordered us to cut their throats and that we kill their heirs is a hard thing...God the merciful has created the hell for the infidels as he created the paradise for the believers....
...
[page 33]
...He did what he was told and did it...with extraordinary single-mindedness. Although already a trained architect and a prospective city planner, Amir-in four years at the company-never once offerred an opinion of the plans he was asked to illustrated. He was assigned to make maps; he made maps.