Forbes: And you learned that from Fiorello LaGuardia.

Giuliani: I learned that from Fiorello LaGuardia, who used to do that for fires, because he loved to go to fires. And he would set up his boots and his fire clothes right near his bed so that he could jump right into them. And I just decided, “I better do that.” Because there could be an attack that night.

Then I got into bed and I was going to try to go to sleep. There was, right on my bed stand, there was a newly released biography by [Roy] Jenkins. A newly released biography of Churchill. And I had read the first two or three chapters. And I saw it and I immediately went to that part of the book about 1940 and about how Churchill had to deal with the Battle of Britain. Because during the day I had been thinking about the Battle of Britain. I had been thinking, “The English went through something worse than this. They went through being bombarded every day, bombed every night, not knowing who was going to be alive the next day. And they got through it. If they could get through it, we should be able to get through it.”

And I thought by reading that, I could learn some lessons from how Churchill got the people of England through something, which, you know, over the length of time, was worse than September 11. And I’ve always done that in my life. I’ve always looked to other people to see, “How did they do it?” And then try to adapt how they did it to the way I did it. So I didn’t think all that out when I did it, I just sort of instinctually went for the book. But now, when I look back on it, that’s why I did it."