Tom Clancy Quotes

81 Sourced Quotes

Look, this is simple. The good old days are now. OK? The human condition today is better than it's ever been, and technology is one of the reasons for that.

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

Tom Clancy
I was one of the first generations to watch television. That's technology. TV is like any other kind of tool. TV exposes people to news, to information, to knowledge, to entertainment. How is it bad? Computers are going to be even bigger. TVs are one-way. You sit there and you watch it. Computers, you interact with.

Tom Clancy
The more information a guy has, the more likely he is to say, "Hey, King Charlie, you really blew that call." That's why democracy happened. 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.

Tom Clancy
Look, technology is another word for tool. There was a time when nails were high-tech. There was a time when people had to be told how to use a telephone. We got past that. Technology is just a tool. People use tools to improve their lives.

Tom Clancy
Liberation and equal-rights issues notwithstanding, it was a man's job to make a woman feel cherished and respected.

Tom Clancy
Well, It's a Communist country, and the Communists do not reward personal initiative...except by execution.

Tom Clancy
The People's Republic of China is still a Marxist, Leninist, Maoist nation. So, you know, communism is still involved there. They haven't figured their way out of that particularly ideological box yet and that's their misfortune.

Tom Clancy
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.

Tom Clancy
People, I am actually fairly smart. Why has this not occurred to anyone? The information is all out there, if you go looking for it, and the classified stuff just comes from analyzing the unclassified stuff and connecting the dots...

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

Tom Clancy
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.

Tom Clancy
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.

Tom Clancy
I'd rather talk to people who do things than complain about other people who do things. I say they're idiots.

Tom Clancy
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. Your spouse and children need not get in its way, because the dream is within you. No one can take your dream away.

Tom Clancy
I write strictly for fun... as long as it stays fun I'll continue to do it.

Tom Clancy
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.

Tom Clancy
Countries that do not control knowledge and information tend to do better because the average guy who is exposed to a lot of information can get ideas and profit from them.

Tom Clancy
Ending your own life is not something the average person does. Everybody's assuming these are Islamic terrorists. Well, if so they've defiled their own religion. Islam does not permit suicide. It says you go to hell if you do something like this... We saw people in Northern Ireland, Catholics acting like savages and Protestants acting like savages... We have people who call themselves Muslims acting like savages. It's not because of their religion, it's because they're fools.

Tom Clancy
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.

Tom Clancy
Of all human lamentations, without doubt, the most common is if only I had known. But we can't know, and so days of death and fire so often begin no differently than those of love and warmth.

Tom Clancy
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.

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

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

Tom Clancy
I'm a spy... I worked for the CIA 15 years. The cover was I worked for the insurance business.

Tom Clancy