I’ve made up stuff that’s turned out to be real, that’s the spooky part. - Tom Clancy

We sink ships and try to pretend that they’re just ships — things without people in them. It’s dishonest, but we do it anyway.

In case you haven't noticed, we live in a world that is for the first time in all of recorded human history unlikely to have a major war. There used to be this country called the Soviet Union; it's not there anymore. The reason is our technology was better than theirs. Probably what pushed the Russians over the edge was SDI. It was really a combination of SDI and CNN. They realized they couldn't beat us so they decided to change the ball game.

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.