Tom Clancy Quotes & Sayings

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

Fighting wars is not so much about killing people as it is about finding things out. The more you know, the more likely you are to win a battle. — 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

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. — Tom Clancy

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

Suspense is achieved by information control: What you know. What the reader knows. What the characters know. — Tom Clancy

I haven't got any fan mail from Osama bin Laden. I have no reason to believe he reads my stuff I'll never decide for commercial reasons to put something in that endangers our national security. You just can't do that. — Tom Clancy

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

I'd rather talk to people who do things than complain about other people who do things. I say they're idiots. — Tom Clancy

Mr. President. Douglas MacArthur said every military disaster can be explained in two words: 'Too late. — Tom Clancy

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

The general difference between conservatives and liberals is that liberals like pretty pictures and conservatives like to build bridges that people can drive across. — Tom Clancy

For over two weeks, the defenders of Wake Island held off a vastly superior force of Japanese ships and troops, inspiring the whole nation with their plucky spirit and sacrifice. Unfortunately, Navy leaders at Pearl Harbor, struggling to protect what was left of the shattered Pacific Fleet, canceled a relief mission, allowing the island and its defenders to fall without support. Wake damaged the long-standing trust between the Corps and the Navy, a memory that still rankles Marines and shames sailors. — Tom Clancy

He had to do so many things and make each appear as though it were the only thing he had to do. He had to compartmentalize everything, when on one task to pretend that the others didn't exist. — Tom Clancy

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

The good old days are now. — Tom Clancy

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

I was one of the first generations to watch television. TV exposes people to news, to information, to knowledge, to entertainment. How is it bad? — Tom Clancy

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

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

Ebola is a nasty disease to get. It's scary. But as a weapon, it is probably not likely. Ebola is a difficult malady to weaponize and deliver efficiently. — Tom Clancy

The Good of the People was a laudable enough goal, but in denying a man's soul, an enduring part of his being, Marxism stripped away the foundation of human dignity and individual value. It also cast aside the objective measure of justice and ethics which, he decided, was the principal legacy of religion to civilized life. — Tom Clancy

That's all it might take. It wasn't death he feared - none of them feared that - but rather failure. But were not the Holy Warriors of Allah those who did the hardest things, and would not his blessings be in proportion to his merit? To be remembered. To be respected by his compatriots. To strike a blow for the cause - even if he managed to do that without recognition, he would go to Allah with peace in his heart. — Tom Clancy

Success is a finished book, a stack of pages each of which is filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world. — Tom Clancy

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

Even true believers had consciences, Too bad. — Tom Clancy

Being a victim is more palatable than having to recognize the intrinsic contradictions of one's own governing philosophy. — Tom Clancy

you can follow along. — Tom Clancy

Not every story started off big enough to notice. — Tom Clancy

How strange that the only lands where he could feel something close to safe were the Christian countries of Europe, which Muslims had struggled and failed to conquer on more than one occasion. Those nations had a nearly suicidal openness to strangers, — Tom Clancy

Man is a creature of hope and invention, both of which belie the idea that things cannot be changed. — Tom Clancy

A commander's pride got his soldiers dead. — Tom Clancy

Danger confronted properly is not something a man must fear. — Tom Clancy

It's not right to say that our loss in Vietnam turned out to be a gain. But lessons were learned. And they were the right lessons. — Tom Clancy

If you don't write the book, the book ain't gonna get written. — Tom Clancy

Intelligence people are no different from anybody else. They have preconceptions, and when they see them in real life, it reinforces how brilliant they think they are. — 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

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

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

In a toxic, festering sort o' way... — Tom Clancy

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

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

The pinnacle of power in China is the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee, the tiny body that sets policy for the nation's 1.4 billion citizens. — Tom Clancy

In the Soviet Union every worker is a government worker, and they have a saying: As long as the bosses pretend to pay us, we will pretend to work. — Tom Clancy

We wait. No sense spooking him. We let him come in nice and close while we do our famous imitation of a hole in the water, — Tom Clancy

The Kealty administration had promised more "openness" and "transparency" in the clandestine CIA. Jack Junior's father had written an op-ed in The Washington Post that suggested, in a manner that was still respectful to the office of the presidency, that Ed Kealty might want to look up the word clandestine in the dictionary. — Tom Clancy

Remember, for every shot you fire, someone, somewhere, is making money. — Tom Clancy

Bad money drives out good.' That means poor performance will take over if good performance isn't recognized. — 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 think about the characters I've created, and then I sit down and start typing and see what they will do. There's a lot of subconscious thought that goes on. It amazes me to find out, a few chapters later, why I put someone in a certain place when I did. — 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

He had to grow his own NCOs. — Tom Clancy

I am the most even-tempered man i know,' clark protested.
'right, no one's ever lived long enough for you to get really mad. they're dead by the time you're mildly annoyed. — Tom Clancy

Jack ordered a bottle of pinot noir, and they perused the menu while they chatted. "So you were at Georgetown." Melanie said it as a statement. — Tom Clancy

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

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

A lawyer is just like an attack dog, only without a conscience. — Tom Clancy

Cheating was a concept both foreign and integral to the fighting of wars. — Tom Clancy

Poor people have poor options. Chavez found the Army almost by accident, and had found it a true open of security and opportunity and fellowship and respect. — Tom Clancy

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

Law, without force, is impotent. — Tom Clancy

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

Victory comes only to those prepared to make it, and take it. — 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

If you give people a firm opinion, you run the risk of being wrong. Guess what? People remember when you're wrong a lot more often than when you're right. So the tendency is to include all the possibilities. It's intellectually honest, even. — Tom Clancy

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. — Tom Clancy

Under the circumstances, washing without soap wasn't even as good as kissing your sister. — Tom Clancy

Everything was politics, and politics was ideology, and ideology came down to personal prejudices rather than the quest for truth. — Tom Clancy

They were wheels-up in less than fifteen minutes. — Tom Clancy

IT WASN'T THAT Moore — 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

What am I supposed to do about you? — 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

Colleges typically did not tell you that ninety percent of your education came after you hung the parchment on the wall. People might ask for a rebate. — Tom Clancy

Privacy and loneliness were the traditional luxuries accorded to a skipper. — Tom Clancy

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

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

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

The extraneous duties, in a sense, were the job. — Tom Clancy

Wars are begun by frightened men. — Tom Clancy

The only people Ryan needed to impress were those who knew him; he cared little for the rest. — Tom Clancy

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

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

There are only two ways we can be beaten: we die or we give up. And we're not giving up. — Tom Clancy

In battle, you forgive a man anything except an unwillingness to take risks. Sometimes you have to put it on the line. — Tom Clancy

Morituri Non Cognant (Those Who are About to Die, Just Don't know) — 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

People live longer today than they ever have. They live happier lives, have more knowledge, more information. All this is the result of communications technology. How is any of that bad? — Tom Clancy

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

When you have stopped learning you have begun to die. — 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

No complaints. The kid is back in the saddle," Jackson said, sitting down. "You should have been up in the Tomcat with me last week. Oh, man, I'm finally back in the groove. I was hassling with a guy in an A-4 playing aggressor, and I ruined his day. It was so fine." He grinned like a lion surveying a herd of crippled antelope. "I'm ready!" "When — Tom Clancy

have the effect of helping it in another, — Tom Clancy

I think it's an intellectual duty for a person who lives in a free society to read material not only with which you agree, but with which you disagree. Because every so often somebody you think is wrong will actually turn out to be right. — Tom Clancy

What do I know about sex? I'm a married man. — 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

There is more to military units than hardware. There is the character of the unit's personnel: their strengths, experience, and knowledge, their ability to get along and work together amid the horrors of the battlefield. There is an almost undefinable quality. That quality is the Marine Corps' secret weapon. Their edge. That quality is their ethos. — 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

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