Tom Clancy

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.

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.

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.

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

There are two kinds of people: the ones who need to be told, and the ones who figure it out all by themselves.

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

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.

Danger confronted properly is not something a man must fear.

America is the most inventive country in the world because everybody has access to information.

Victory comes only to those prepared to make it, and take it.

Once you stop believing in Santa Claus, the whole world just goes downhill.

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.

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

The objective of a terrorist is to create political change in the society he targets.

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

Wars are begun by frightened men.

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

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.

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?

The good old days are now.

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

Success will ruin your life.

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

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

It is a principle of diplomacy that one must know something of the truth in order to lie convincingly.

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

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

In battle, you forgive a man anything except an unwillingness to take risks. Sometimes you have to put it on the line.

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.

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.

Learn to write the same way you learn to play golf. You do it and keep doing it until you get it right.

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

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

Privacy and loneliness were the traditional luxuries accorded to a skipper.

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.

It was one thing to use computers as a tool quite another to let them do your thinking for you.

There are two kinds of people: the ones who need to be told and the ones who figure it out all by themselves.

Suspense is achieved by information control: What you know. What the reader knows. What the characters know.

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

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

Helicopters dont fly they vibrate so badly the ground rejects them.

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

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.

Collaboration on a book is the ultimate unnatural act.

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