Top 139 Quotes & Sayings by Tom Clancy
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American novelist Tom Clancy.
Last updated on December 23, 2024.
The objective of a terrorist is to create political change in the society he targets.
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.
Helicopters don't fly, they vibrate so badly the ground rejects them.
Probably what pushed the Russians over the edge was SDI. They realized they couldn't beat us.
The human condition today is better than it's ever been, and technology is one of the reasons for that.
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.
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.
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.
The U.S. Military is us. There is no truer representation of a country than the people that it sends into the field to fight for it. The people who wear our uniform and carry our rifles into combat are our kids, and our job is to support them, because they're protecting us.
The good old days are now.
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.
There used to be this country called the Soviet Union; it's not there anymore. Our technology was better than theirs.
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.
The only person who has artistic control is the director, and 'director' is how you spell God in Hollywood.
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
Books and movies are different art forms with different rules. And because of that, they never translate exactly.
Learn to write the same way you learn to play golf. You do it and keep doing it until you get it right.
I've made up stuff that's turned out to be real, that's the spooky part.
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?
America is the most inventive country in the world because everybody has access to information.
Collaboration on a book is the ultimate unnatural act.
Wars are begun by frightened men.
Life is about learning; when you stop learning, you die.
Never ask what sort of computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If not, why embarrass him?
No matter what you or anyone else does, there will be someone who says that there's something bad about it.
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.
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.
I wanted to see my name on the cover of a book. If your name is in the Library of Congress, you're immortal.
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.
What do I know about sex? I'm a married man.
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?
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. It's spooky.
There are two kinds of people: the ones who need to be told, and the ones who figure it out all by themselves.
In battle, you forgive a man anything except an unwillingness to take risks. Sometimes you have to put it on the line.
Show me an elitist, and I'll show you a loser.
Fundamentally, I think of myself as a storyteller, not a writer.
The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.
The role of fiction is supposed to be divorced from the role of reality.
Success will ruin your life.
Man is a creature of hope and invention, both of which belie the idea that things cannot be changed.
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.
Courage is being the only only one who knows how terrified you are.
What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It's not good at much else.
Washington D.C. is about 300 square miles surrounded by realty.
An overnight success is ten years in the making.
Every person you meet - and everything you do in life - is an opportunity to learn something.
When you have stopped learning you have begun to die.
There are only two ways we can be beaten: we die or we give up. And we're not giving up.
Giving your book to Hollywood is like turning your daughter over to a pimp.
If you want to kick the tiger in his ass you'd better have a plan for dealing with his teeth
Nothing is as real as a dream. The world can change around you, but your dream will not... Responsibilities need not erase it. Duties need not obscure it... Because the dream is within you. No one can take your dream away.
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.
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.
(Stereotyping) is only for those without the imagination to see people as they are instead of being like someone else they understand.
The smaller the mind, the greater the ego.
There are two kinds of people: the ones who need to be told and the ones who figure it out all by themselves.
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..."
We cannot fail to win unless we fail to try.
Fix your eyes forward on what you can do, not back on what you cannot change.
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.
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