Tom Clancy
Washington D.C. is about 300 square miles surrounded by realty.Collection: Squares
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..."Collection: Ideas
An overnight success is ten years in the making.Collection: Years
There are only two ways we can be beaten: we die or we give up. And we're not giving up.Collection: Giving Up
Remember, for every shot you fire, someone, somewhere, is making money.Collection: Inspirational
I just finished reading the Koran, and there's nothing in there I didn't hear in Sunday school.Collection: Reading
That's the ultimate pornography. There's nothing more pornographic than glorifying war.Collection: War
The point of life was to press on, to do the best you can, to make the world a better place.Collection: World
When you have stopped learning you have begun to die.Collection: Dies
We cannot fail to win unless we fail to try.Collection: Success
Two questions form the foundation of all novels: "What if?" and "What next?" (A third question, "What now?", is one the author asks himself every 10 minutes or so; but it's more a cry than a question.) Every novel begins with the speculative question, What if "X" happened? That's how you start.Collection: Ifs And
If a hero must have an unmarked grave, it should at least be close to where his comrades fell." "Comrades?" "One way or another we all fight for the things we believe in. Doesn't that give us some common ground?Collection: Believe
I'd rather talk to people who do things than complain about other people who do things. I say they're idiots.Collection: People
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.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Years
The difference between me and you is that I do good fiction.Collection: Differences
Ice hockey is the closest thing to religion permitted by the Soviet Union.Collection: Hockey
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.Collection: Country
A lawyer is just like an attack dog, only without a conscience.Collection: Funny
Morituri non cognant, perhaps. Those who are about to die — just don't know.Collection: Knows
When I go to peoples' houses I like to sneak into their bedrooms and try on their underwear.Collection: God
America is the most inventive country in the world. Why? Because everybody has access to information. In the Soviet Union it was illegal to take a photograph of a train station. Look what happened to them.Collection: Country
I do not over-intellectualise the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.Collection: Simple
Speak your dialogue out loud. If it sounds like the way people talk, then write it down.Collection: Writing
Surviving is much more painful than death.Collection: Painful
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.Collection: Reading
If you don't write the book, the book ain't gonna get written.Collection: Book
Suspense is achieved by information control: What you know. What the reader knows. What the characters know.Collection: Character
I'm a spy. It's not really... I worked for the CIA 15 years. The cover was I worked for the insurance business.Collection: Years
There is a long and honorable tradition of citizens in service to their nation that goes back at least as far as Cincinnatus, the Roman citizen who, more than once answered his country's call, then returned to his farm and his family and his work.Collection: Country
I don't discuss works in progress.Collection: Progress
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.Collection: Hate
"Literature" is written material that, 100 years after the death of the author, is forced upon high school students.Collection: School
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.Collection: Country
I write strictly for fun... as long as it stays fun I'll continue to do it.Collection: Fun
Most things in here don't react well to bullets.Collection: Bullets
Probably what pushed the Russians over the edge was SDI... They realized they couldn't beat us...Collection: Memorable
It is a principle of diplomacy that one must know something of the truth in order to lie convincingly.Collection: Lying
And so began something that had not quite begun and would not soon end, with many people in many places moving off in directions and on missions which they all mistakenly thought they understood. That was just as well. The future was too fearful for contemplation, and beyond the expected, illusory finish lines were things fated by the decisions made this morning -- and, once decided, best unseen.Collection: Morning
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.Collection: Smart
What do I know about sex? I’m a married man.Collection: Sex
To Ronald Wilson Regan, The Fortieth President of The United States: The Man Who Won The War.Collection: War
The KGB still killed people, the KGB would not execute its last prisoner until the final days of its existence in 1991, but by the eighties a termination required paperwork and signatures and a post-action review.Collection: Kgb
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.Collection: Military
My life is a very simple life thank youCollection: Simple
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.Collection: War
Even true believers had consciences, Too bad.Collection: Believer
All field agents have some cowboy in them – even the ones from New York.Collection: New York
Civilians listened to officers, which said a lot about the intelligence of civilians.Collection: Said