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.”

“Courage is being the only only one who knows how terrified you are.”

“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.”

“(Stereotyping) is only for those without the imagination to see people as they are instead of being like someone else they understand.”

“Life was such a strange thing, so permanent when one had it, so fleeting when it was lost- and those who lost it could never tell you what it was like, could they?”

“An overnight success is ten years in the making.”

“Time is something that fills the empty spaces of life”

“Most things in here don't react well to bullets.”

“ Visto despuès, podría parecer un modo extraño de empezar una guerra. Solo uno de los implicados sabía de lo que de verdad sucedía, y por casualidad ”

“Morituri Non Cognant (Those Who are About to Die, Just Don't know)”

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

“My life is a very simple life thank you”

“I understand why we do that now. It’s a help, not a threat. It’s something to remind you how important words are. Ideas are important. Principles are important. Words are important. Your word is the most important of all. Your word is who you are.”

“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.”

“Even true believers had consciences, Too bad.”

“The point of life was to press on, to do the best you can, to make the world a better place.”

“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.”

“Success is a finished book, a stack of pages each of which is filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world. ”

“She didn't strike me as a "crossword in ink" kind of girl”

“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.”

“To Ronald Wilson Regan, The Fortieth President of The United States: The Man Who Won The War.”

“To Ronald Reagan, The Man Who Won the War.”

“Christ, how did you ever get this screwed up! his mind demanded ofhim. He knew the answer, but even that was not a full explanation.Different segments of the organism called John Terrance Kelly knewdifferent parts of the whole story,but somehow they'd never all come together, leaving the separatefragments of what had ...once been a tough, smart, decisive and to blunderabout in confusion - and despair! There was a happy thought.”

“Colleges typically did not tell you that ninety percent of your education came after you hung the parchment on the wall. People might ask for a rebate.”

“What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It's not good at much else.”

“I am a politician which means I am a liar and a crook. When I am not kissing babies I am stealing their lollypops.”

“Remember, for every shot you fire, someone, somewhere, is making money.”

“Tango Down”

“The only way to do all the things you'd like to do is to read”

“Fix your eyes forward on what you can do, not back on what you cannot change.”

“Nothing is as real as a dream. Responsibilities need not erase it. Duties need not obscure it. Because the dream is within you, no one can take it away.”

“Beware the fury of a patient man”

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