Quotes By Tom Clancy

Probably what pushed the Russians over the edge was SDI. They realized they couldn't beat us.

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.

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 it away.

Wars are begun by frightened men.

The only person who has artistic control is the director, and 'director' is how you spell God in Hollywood.

The human condition today is better than it's ever been, and technology is one of the reasons for that.

Man is a creature of hope and invention, both of which belie the idea that things cannot be changed.

Never ask what sort of computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If not, why embarrass him?

Helicopters don't fly, they vibrate so badly the ground rejects them.

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.

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

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

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?

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.

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

The good old days are now.

There used to be this country called the Soviet Union; it's not there anymore. Our technology was better than theirs.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

Collaboration on a book is the ultimate unnatural act.

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

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.

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?

Fundamentally, I think of myself as a storyteller, not a writer.

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

Show me an elitist, and I'll show you a loser.

Success will ruin your life.