Tom Clancy Quotes

War is the ultimate criminal act, an armed robbery writ large. And it’s always about greed. It’s always a nation that wants something another nation has. And you defeat that nation by recognizing what it wants and denying it to them.

The thing you have to understand about fighter pilots is they never quite grow past the stage of little boys buzzing past girls on their bicycles.

The odds against becoming the next Frederick Forsythe are, of course, somewhere between merely exponential and astronomical-incredible. I’ll settle for a book-jacket with my name on it.

Beware the fury of a patient man

No matter what you or anyone else does, there will be someone who says that there's something bad about it. Whenever somebody comes up with a good idea, there's somebody else who has never had a good idea in his life who stands up and says, "Oh, you can't do that..."

If you want to tell me I'm a bum, that's okay.

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

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

Our tools keep getting better, and as a result of that, our lives keep getting better.

Politicians are more concerned with “issues” than “principles,” but talked as though the two nouns had the same meaning.

"Rainbow Six" was sort of a spinoff of one my books, which did pretty well. … Interestingly enough, I never play the games. I just sort of — it's more fun for me to help formulate them than it is to play them.

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

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.

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

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