Tom Clancy Quotes

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! ~ Tom Clancy

In the Soviet Union it was illegal to take a photograph of a train station. Look what happened to them. They tried to classify everything. ~ Tom Clancy

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

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. ~ Tom Clancy

They loved their country largely because they controlled it. ~ Tom Clancy

If the question is, 'Do I wish I made thirty million dollars a year,' the answer is, 'You bet.' If the question is, 'Do I wish I could write like Tom Clancy,' the answer must remain, 'No.' ~ Christopher Buckley

Throughout history, people have risked their lives for love, for patriotism, for principle, and for God far more often than fear has made them run away. Upon that fact depends progress. The ~ Tom Clancy

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 ~ Tom Clancy

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

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, ~ Tom Clancy

IT WASN'T THAT Moore ~ Tom Clancy

At this table, a loud voice was just a man venting his stress. A quiet one was far more dangerous. ~ Tom Clancy

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

--General Sergey Voloshin ~ Tom Clancy

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

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

Victory comes only to those prepared to make it, and take it. ~ Tom Clancy

If you don't write it down - " "Then it never happened. ~ Tom Clancy

What am I supposed to do about you? ~ Tom Clancy

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. ~ Tom Clancy

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. ~ Tom Clancy

All men had their limitations. It was just that some were more dangerous than others. And while genius knew it had limits, idiocy was always unbounded. ~ Tom Clancy

I've been telling people for 12 years that if you want to get a nuclear device into the United States, just bring it through the port of Miami disguised as cocaine. ~ Tom Clancy

He continued along the route that he had reconnoitered the morning before. And the morning before that. He needed to change his route some to see if he was actually being followed. His instincts said he was clear, but his training ordered him to make sure. ~ J.T. Patten

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. ~ Tom Clancy

For over 220 years, Marines have served at the end of America's operational reach - on freedom's far frontiers. These Marines are the backbone of the ARG/MEU (SOC) team, our regional commanders' force of choice for both forward presence and crisis response. ~ Tom Clancy

The only person who has artistic control is the director, and 'director' is how you spell God in Hollywood. ~ Tom Clancy

Beware the fury of a patient man ~ Tom Clancy

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. ~ Tom Clancy

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. ~ Tom Clancy

Jack missed the normality of merely reading the paper. ~ Tom Clancy

They fought their first action in March of 1775. Embarked on eight small ships, they sailed to the Bahamas and captured a British fort near Nassau, seizing gunpowder and supplies. Later, during the Revolutionary War, Marines fought several engagements in their distinctive green coats, such as helping George Washington to cross the Delaware River, and assisting John Paul Jones on the Bonhomme Richard to capture the British frigate Serapis during their famous sea fight. ~ Tom Clancy

Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make proud, ~ Tom Clancy

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

The role of fiction is supposed to be divorced from the role of reality. ~ Tom Clancy

Fix your eyes forward on what you can do, not back on what you cannot change. ~ Tom Clancy

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. ~ Tom Clancy

A rare academic (was) a man who knew what he didn't know. ~ Tom Clancy

Wars are begun by frightened men. ~ Tom Clancy

I don't discuss works in progress ... ~ Tom Clancy

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

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

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

Of all human lamentations, without doubt, the most common is if only I had known. But we can't know, and so days of death and fire so often begin no differently than those of love and warmth. ~ Tom Clancy

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. ~ Tom Clancy

Diplomacy was like a card game. The difference was that you never really knew the value of the cards in your own hand. ~ Tom Clancy

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. ~ Tom Clancy

The arts and soldiering took time to acquire – time and discipline and desire. No, he was up against bullies. And bullies were cowards. These were mercenaries who acted for money. Shot as, on the other hand, took great pride that he performed his DUTIES for love of country and, though he didn't quite think of it in those terms, for love of his fellow soldiers. ~ Tom Clancy

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

What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It's not good at much else. ~ Tom Clancy

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. ~ Tom Clancy

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

One presidential advisor to another: If the world made sense, we'd all have to find honest work. ~ Tom Clancy

You have to know the things you don't know. You have to figure out what the questions are before you can start looking for answers. ~ Tom Clancy

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. ~ Tom Clancy

I'm never going to be a Tom Clancy. And I wouldn't really want to be - not that I have anything against him, and I wish him continued success - because that's not why I'm writing novels. I'm doing it because I have to. I feel like I have to, anyway. ~ Michael Chabon

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

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

And this letter threatened change, didn't it? It was a threat, and he might have to do something about the threat. That meant doing something about the man behind it. It had happened before. It could happen again, he decided. Andropov would not live long enough to learn that in considering this action, he would set in motion the demise of his own country. ~ Tom Clancy

I had some very, very fond memories of the people I worked with and the authors I worked with - and I won't mention any names - but as I have been traveling through rural Maine over the past few weeks, one of my favorite things to do is to go into bookstores on the side of rural routes and paw through the old copies of Tom Clancy and Trevanian books they have in there for weird old 1970s thrillers that I haven't read yet. ~ John Hodgman

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

How strange that he should feel trapped by plans he himself had set in motion. ~ Tom Clancy

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? ~ Tom Clancy

The noblest of ideas have always been protected by warriors. ~ Tom Clancy

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

Time is something that fills the empty spaces of life ~ Tom Clancy

No man who could rationalize the death of a child could truly be called a man at all, ~ Tom Clancy

You can always find an expert to confirm your belief, no matter how ridiculous. ~ Tom Clancy

If the First Toddler wears it, it has to be fashionable. ~ Tom Clancy

Every person you meet - and everything you do in life - is an opportunity to learn something. ~ Tom Clancy

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

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. ~ Tom Clancy

A man had to have something, he reasoned, to lose his mind in, at least once a day. ~ Tom Clancy

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

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. ~ Tom Clancy

The mark of a good officer, Wegener repeatedly told his youngsters, was willingness to admit he had something yet to learn. ~ Tom Clancy

I just finished reading the Koran, and there's nothing in there I didn't hear in Sunday school. ~ Tom Clancy

Brian had been killed the year before on a Campus black op in Libya. Dom had been there, he'd held his brother in his arms as he died, and then Dominic returned to The Campus, hell-bent on doing the hard, dangerous work that he believed in. ~ Tom Clancy

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

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. ~ Tom Clancy

She can take a year to read something, whereas I like a book that becomes more important in my life that life itself.
When I was in the middle of 'Red Storm Rising' by Tom Clancy - which was not selected for the Man Booker shortlist - you could have taken my liver out and fed it to the dog. And I wouldn't have noticed. ~ Jeremy Clarkson

Panic is something that good operations officers plan for. ~ Tom Clancy

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. ~ Tom Clancy

Dominic took the bait: If the President breaks the law, then the House of Representatives impeaches him and the Senate convicts him, and he's out on the street, ~ Tom Clancy

You learn to write the same way you learn to play golf... You do it, and keep doing it until you get it right. A lot of people think something mystical happens to you, that maybe the muse kisses you on the ear. But writing isn't divinely inspired – it's hard work. ~ Tom Clancy

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. ~ Tom Clancy

Therefore, it is in our mutual interests to cause unrest and chaos within America. The new American president is a weak man. ~ Tom Clancy

The five hundred feet up the square-spiral staircase ~ Tom Clancy

A lively discussion is usually helpful, because the hottest fire makes the hardest steel. ~ Tom Clancy

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 ~ Tom Clancy

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. ~ Tom Clancy

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

If Tom Clancy didn't write any Op-Centers, he would be $60 million less rich. ~ Robert Gottlieb

Jack assumed they would be heading to the pub there in Century House. It was drab, like the rest of the building, but more important, it was vastly more secure than just venturing out to some alehouse on the street. ~ Tom Clancy

After you stop believing in santa claus, the whole world just goes downhill ~ Tom Clancy

Switzerland is a land where crime is virtually unknown, yet most Swiss males are required by law to keep in their homes what amounts to a portable, personal machine gun. ~ Tom Clancy

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

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. ~ Tom Clancy

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. ~ Tom Clancy

When I was 16, the first book I ever actually purchased with my own money, in fact, and had read on my own time was 'Hunt for Red October' by Tom Clancy. ~ Max Brooks

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