Tom Clancy Quotes

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.

The only real difference between a wise man and a fool, Moore knew, was that the wise man tended to make more serious mistakes—and only because no one trusted a fool with really crucial decisions; only the wise had the opportunity to lose battles, or nations.

Keep at it! The one talent that's indispensable to a writer is persistence. You must write the book, else there is no book. It will not finish itself. Do not try to commit art. Just tell the damned story.

I wanted to see my name on the cover of a book. If your name is in the Library of Congress, you're immortal.

The difference between me and you is that I do good fiction.

Anti-Catholicism is the last respectable prejudice. You can't hate black people anymore, of course, and you can't hate homosexuals anymore, but you can hate all the Catholics you want.

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

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.

Life is about learning; when you stop learning, you die.

I've made up stuff that's turned out to be real, that's the spooky part.

If you want to kick the tiger in his ass you'd better have a plan for dealing with his teeth

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

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.

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

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

Ice hockey is the closest thing to religion permitted by the Soviet Union.

The first rumors about Zenith came from the Czechoslovakians.

When you have stopped learning you have begun to die.

No matter what you or anyone else does, there will be someone who says that there's something bad about it.