Quotes from Tom Clancy

the problem with so secure a place was that it depended absolutely on secrecy which, once blown, became a fatal liability

appears that they want what the Russians have, the new oil and gold discoveries.

One good thing about this place, you got all the hot water you want, and no Mickey Mouse on the housekeeping. Now, if they could just turn the fucking heat on at night-- Where the hell are we? Colorado. I know that much. Not much else, though.

Heavy enemy jamming activity to the west," the regimental commander announced. "Plan Three. Repeat: Plan Three.

question that remained now was whether he would be alive to perform the day's final salaat. That was in Allah's

It's a way to attack an enemy systematically—all over, all at the same time. And you can do real harm that way.

Politics had to be the only arena known to man in which people took great action without caring much for the realworld consequences, and to which the real world was far less important than whatever fantasy

All men had their limitations. It was just that some were more dangerous than others. And while genius knew it had limits, idiocy was always unbounded.

Horner also, to quote John Paul Jones, has something a professional officer must have: "the nicest sense of personal honor." Right and wrong are identifiable in Chuck's universe, and separate. In a community where a man's word is his life, Chuck Horner's word is found in gold lettering on an adamantine wall of granite.

He was master of all he surveyed. At least that was the phrase that came to mind, and with all such aphorisms it could be both true and false at the same time.

Things were going well. Work here was hard, but there was nothing in the way of Mickey Mouse bullshit.

When the Air Force nearly collapsed in the 1970s, he was one of the men who saved it, and rebuilt it in the 1980s, not just fixing the broken parts, but defining what an air force is supposed to be.

you also learn a lot of things, because he's a dazzlingly effective teacher.

Lo único que se necesita para que triunfe el mal es que los hombres de bien no hagan nada.»

The Americans would claim thirty-seven kills, quite a score since they had expected a total of only twenty-seven Russian aircraft. In fact, of twenty-six MiGs, only five undamaged aircraft remained

The helicopter ride was twenty-five minutes exactly

A nation achieves greatness by helping others to make peace, not by demonstrating prowess at war or commerce.

it. Even his curiosity for his condition was a tenuous thing. For some reason his surroundings seemed much more interesting than his own body. Looking directly up, he saw a TV-like instrument, along with some other

Army instructors are taught that if the student fails to learn, it is because the instructor failed to teach properly.

Prosperity was the handmaiden of peace, and the assassin of discontent.

The plan said they would not be necessary, but the plan had also said his division had to hold the island unsupported for only two weeks. By that time Germany was supposed to be fully defeated, and the land war in Europe mainly over.

proverbial pros from Dover

i am the most even-tempered man i know,' clark protested. 'right, no one's ever lived long enough for you to get really mad. they're dead by the time you're mildly annoyed.

THERE IS NO such thing as magic. That was merely the word people used to explain something so cleverly done that there was no ready explanation for it, and the simplest technique employed by its practitioners was to distract the audience with one moving and obvious hand (usually in a white glove) while the other was doing something else.