Tom Clancy Quotes

Wars are begun by frightened men.

Keep at it! The one talent that's indispensable to a writer is persistence. You must write the book, else there is no book. It will not finish itself. Do not try to commit art. Just tell the damned story.

There was a time when nails were high-tech. There was a time when people had to be told how to use a telephone. Technology is just a tool. People use tools to improve their lives.

The KGB still killed people, the KGB would not execute its last prisoner until the final days of its existence in 1991, but by the eighties a termination required paperwork and signatures and a post-action review.

About forty percent of the people vote Democrat. About forty percent vote Republican. Of those eighty percent, most wouldn't change their votes if Adolf Hitler was running against Abe Lincoln - or against FDR ... That leaves twenty percent of the people who swing back one way or another ... the true independents ... That twenty percent controls the destiny of the country.

It is good that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it.

I understand why we do that now. It's a help, not a threat. It's something to remind you how important words are. Ideas are important. Principles are important. Words are important. Your word is the most important of all. Your word is who you are.

Giving your book to Hollywood is like turning your daughter over to a pimp,

Everyone knew Russia's ambitions extended to the Crimea, but a few years earlier some steam was let out of the kettle when the pro-nationalist Ukrainian president was replaced by a pro-Russian successor. The fate of the Black Sea fleet in the port of Sevastopol seemed secure, and Russia went about its business.

It's all about intelligence; and intelligence comes down to a bunch of faceless bureaucrats sifting through all this crap.

Thing, most deadly of all to those who hold it in their earthly hands. For yourself, you must decide. What sort of leader do you wish to be, and with what other leaders

Tradition is important," Evans said. "For a soldier, tradition is often the reason one carries on when there are so many reasons not to. It's more than just yourself, more than just your mates - but it's not just something for soldiers, is it? It is true - or should be true - of any professional community.

It's a leadership function. They taught me that at Quantico. The troops have to see you doing the job. They have to know you're there for them. And I have to be sure that it's all real, that I actually am the President.

Specifically, they'd used genetic material from colon cancer, one of the more robust strains, and the results had been striking. The

Before, it was always, 'Oh, no, here comes Clancy, that insurance agent.' Now it's, 'Oh, here comes Tom Clancy, bestselling author.' But I'm still the same basic middle-class slob.

Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make proud,

What am I supposed to do about you?

Jack looked out the window as they passed the Mormon temple, just outside the beltway near Connecticut Avenue. A decidedly odd-looking building, it had grandeur with its marble columns and gilt spires. The beliefs represented by that impressive structure seemed curious to Ryan, a lifelong Catholic, but the people who held them were honest and hardworking, and fiercely loyal to their country, because they believed in what America stood for.

Nothing is as real as a dream. Responsibilities need not erase it. Duties need not obscure it. Because the dream is within you, no one can take it away.

It was one thing to use computers as a tool, quite another to let them do your thinking for you.

There is an old saying: In history nothing is true but the names and dates. In fiction everything is true but the names and dates. The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense.

People who feel themselves inferior have a pathological desire to disprove their own perceptions.

Show me an elitist, and I'll show you a loser.

I write strictly for fun ... as long as it stays fun I'll continue to do it.

The point of life was to press on, to do the best you can, to make the world a better place.

There used to be this country called the Soviet Union; it's not there anymore. Our technology was better than theirs.

"Literature" is written material that, 100 years after the death of the author, is forced upon high school students.

You can act like a policeman or a soldier, but not both.

Christ, how did you ever get this screwed up! his mind demanded of
him. He knew the answer, but even that was not a full explanation.
Different segments of the organism called John Terrance Kelly knew
different parts of the whole story,
but somehow they'd never all come together, leaving the separate
fragments of what had ... once been a tough, smart, decisive and to blunder
about in confusion - and despair! There was a happy thought.

Even today, the memory of Ribbon Creek influences the way new recruits are handled - not with kid gloves, but with respect for their safety and dignity. This too is part of the Marine ethos: to take care of their brother and sister Marines.

When I was doing 'Executive Orders,' I talked about Ebola to people who know about infectious diseases and their use as weapons of war, and guys told me that these weapons are more psychological than physical.

Can't take him up there for a short haircut." Hallston smiled coldly. "I doubt anyone

Comrade, you can deceive us. Anyone can―for a time. But not a very long time.

November 1775, when our Founding Fathers ". . .resolved, that two Battalions of Marines be raised. . .[and]. . .that particular care be taken that no person be appointed or enlisted into said Battalions, but such as are good seamen or so acquainted with maritime affairs as are able to serve to advantage by sea,

Probably what pushed the Russians over the edge was SDI. They realized they couldn't beat us.

A commander's pride got his soldiers dead.

One thing about flying that he never got used to was that no matter how awful the weather was on the ground, if you flew high enough you could always find the sun.

The media could not be policed from without and had to be policed from within.

Washington D.C. is about 300 square miles surrounded by realty.

The human condition today is better than it's ever been, and technology is one of the reasons for that.

The only way to do all the things you'd like to do is to read

Anti-Catholicism is the last respectable prejudice. You can't hate black people anymore, of course, and you can't hate homosexuals anymore, but you can hate all the Catholics you want.

Sandy and her community fought against a thing, and fought bravely, risking their sanity in resisting the actions of forces whose root causes they could not directly address. Kelly and his fought against people, leaving the actions of their enemies to others, but able to seek them out and fight directly against their foe, even eliminating them if they were lucky. One side had absolute purity of purpose but lacked satisfaction. The other could attain the satisfaction of destroying the enemy, but only at the cost of becoming too much like what they struggled against.

you can follow along.

If you're really good, they'd taught him at Quantico, you don't have to be arrogant.

Wars are begun by frightened men. They fear war, but more than that, they fear what will happen if they don't start one or take equivalent action, I suppose.

There are two kinds of people: the ones who need to be told, and the ones who figure it out all by themselves.

Sunday was the normal day for the political awareness session at sea. Ordinarily Putin would have officiated, reading some Pravada editorials, followed by selected quotations from the works of Lenin and a discussion of the lessons to be learned from the readings. It is very much like a church service.

Helicopters don't fly, they vibrate so badly the ground rejects them.

A Guards regiment, eh, Comrade Colonel? These tit-sucking children could not guard a Turkish whorehouse; much less do anything worthwhile inside of it!
While commenting on how unprepared his troops are. -Alekseyev

Life was such a strange thing, so permanent when one had it, so fleeting when it was lost- and those who lost it could never tell you what it was like, could they?

Not every story started off big enough to notice.

A conscience is the price of morality, and morality is the price of civilization.

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.

Diplomatic exchange combined the worst aspects of explaining things to a toddler and talking with a mother-in-law. It was dull, it was tedious, it was exasperating, and it was necessary.

The only difference between a wise man and a fool was in the magnitude of his mistakes. To err was human, and the smarter and more powerful you were, the greater the scope of your screwup.

I'm a spy ... I worked for the CIA 15 years. The cover was I worked for the insurance business.

I think it's going to be remembered as the last major war on planet Earth, if we're lucky, if we maintain our foreign policy properly ... It will be remembered as the last time major countries had to put people in the field and put them in harm's way. It may be the last of all human nature wars, which is a nice way to remember any kind of a war, as the last one.

The dead were gone and didn't know or care what they left behind.. If the dead still lived on the surface of this earth then it was in the minds of those who remembered them ... Pg 736

Things rarely happen for a single reason. Even the cleverest and most skilled manipulators recognize that their real art lies in making use of that which they cannot predict.

The most wounding insult to an educated Russian was to be called nekulturny-uncultured-yet the same men who sat in the gilt boxes at the Moscow State Opera weeping at the end of a performance of Boris Gudunov could immediately turn around and order the execution or imprisonment of a hundred men without blinking. A strange people, made more strange by their political philosophy.

One must know something of the truth in order to lie convincingly." The president smiled. "Well, they've had enough time to play this game. I hope my belated reaction will not disappoint them." "No, sir. Alex must have half expected you to kick him out the door." "The thought's occurred to me more than once. His diplomatic charm has always been lost on me. That's the one thing about the Russians - they remind me so much of the mafia chieftains I used to prosecute. The same smattering of culture and good manners, and the same absence of morality." The president shook his head. He was talking like a hawk again. "Stay close, Jeff. I have George Farmer coming in here in a few minutes, but I want you around when our friend comes back." Pelt walked back to his office pondering the president's remark. It was, he admitted to himself, crudely accurate. The most wounding insult to an educated Russian was to be

Every country in the world had a bureaucracy, whose entire purpose was to delay important things from happening.

Nothing is as real as a dream. The world can change around you, but your dream will not. Your life may change, but your dream doesn't have to. Responsibilities need not erase it. Duties need not obscure it.

Courage is being the only only one who knows how terrified you are.

Jack missed the normality of merely reading the paper.

Each of a hundred ships, built by the same men at the same yard to the same plans, will have her own special characteristics--most of them bad, really, but after her crew becomes accustomed to them they are spoken of affectionately, particularly in retrospect.

You couldn't allow yourself to get bored. THAT would be a fight.

The first step in accomplishing any goal was deciding that it was possible.

Beware the fury of a patient man

You will come to understand how they work, their dedication and the personal sacrifices they make. For these are truly the people who stand guard on the walls of freedom, while the rest of us sleep safely in our homes.

There is a long and honorable tradition of citizens in service to their nation that goes back at least as far as Cincinnatus, the Roman citizen who, more than once answered his country's call, then returned to his farm and his family and his work.

Never ask what sort of computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If not, why embarrass him?

We are enemies. I would as soon kill you as have dinner with you. But even enemies can negotiate, can't they, now?

It wasn't an epidemic yet because no one knew about it.

The three wolves didn't know that the sheep herd had three dogs in it. Big ones.

The coat went over his shoulder. It was too hot here for that, and hotter still where he was going. He'd have to wear a coat there. It was expected, one of those curious rules of formal behavior that demanded the maximum discomfort to attain the proper degree of decorum.

Time is something that fills the empty spaces of life

Reporters called down every other profession - medicine, law, politics - for failing to meet a level of professional responsibility which they would allow no one to enforce on themselves, and which they themselves would too rarely enforce on their own. Do as I say, not as I do was something you couldn't say to a six-year-old, but it had become a ready cant for grown-ups. And if it got any worse, then what?

The President was trapped – and with nearly every president, it had come about from his own words. Presidential promises and statements… The people had this annoying way of remembering them. And even if they didn't, there were journalists and political rivals never passed on a chance to make the necessary reminders.

Back in pre-Revolutionary America cruel and unusual punishment meant the rack and burning at the stake ... in more recent rulings it has been taken to mean the absence of cable television and denial of sex-change operations, or just overcrowding in the prisons.

Russia will invade Ukraine, probably within the next few weeks. They will annex the Crimea. From there, if they meet no resistance from the West, they will take more of the country,

I'm tired of all this. What ever happened to honesty, Arnie? What ever happened to telling the goddamned truth? It's all a fucking game here, and the object of the game isn't to do the right thing, the object of the game is to stay here. It's not supposed to be that way!

I'll indulge you and look at the pictures.

Books and movies are different art forms with different rules. And because of that, they never translate exactly.

There is no seamen in the world who prefers a slow ship to a fast one. The painters painted better, the cooks took a little more time with the meals, and the technicians tightened the bolts just a little more. Their ship was no longer a cripple, and pride broke out in the crew like a rainbow after a summer shower.

(Stereotyping) is only for those without the imagination to see people as they are instead of being like someone else they understand.

Well, It's a Communist country, and the Communists do not reward personal initiative ... except by execution.

All history is really nothing more than the application of ideology to the past.

office just wasn't a very good place for thinking, but every executive in the world pretended it was. Christ

You just had to apply judgment to your action, and such judgment came with experience - but experience often came from bad decisions.

Tears released poisons from inside, poisons which if not released could be as deadly as the real kind. The

Biryukov continued, "Roman Talanov, my counterpart in the FSB, is leading this charge. I suppose with complete control over Russian intelligence activity abroad, he can expand his influence and begin destabilizing nations beyond the near abroad. Russia will invade Ukraine, probably within the next few weeks. They will annex the Crimea. From there, if they meet no resistance from the West, they will take more of the country, all the way to the Dnieper River.

He was learning to curse his newly acquired status as resident genius.

In a toxic, festering sort o' way...

Surviving is much more painful than death.

The nice thing about enemies is you know where they stand. This is not always true of friends."

--General Sergey Voloshin

All field agents have some cowboy in them – even the ones from New York.

That's up to you, Jack, but part of doing this kind of work is the willingness to put on blinders. Deal with what's in front of you. Every terrorist has a mother and father. Maybe kids, maybe people that love him. Hell, six days out of seven he might be a decent citizen, but on that one day he decides to pick up a gun or plant a bomb, he's a threat. And if you're the guy standing between him and innocent lives, the threat is all you can afford to worry about. You get what I'm saying?

The five hundred feet up the square-spiral staircase