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...

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

He had to do so many things and make each appear as though it were the only thing he had to do. He had to compartmentalize everything, when on one task to pretend that the...

The allocation of research money was a political act.

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

The assistant commander at any post is supposed to be a ruthless son of a bitch.

I think it’s going to be remembered as the last major war on planet Earth, if we’re lucky, if we maintain our foreign policy properly, … It will be remembered as the last time major...

The only way to do all the things you’d like to do is to read

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;...

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

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

That’s the ultimate pornography, … There’s nothing more pornographic than glorifying war.

If you don’t write it down, it never happened.Cathy (& Jack) Ryan

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

My wife will tell you I’m practically addicted to the History Channel, … And I read a lot of history.

Intelligence people are no different from anybody else. They have preconceptions, and when they see them in real life, it reinforces how brilliant they think they 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...

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

Danger confronted properly is not something a man must fear.

My vision for this book and the others in the series is to let people know what kind of commanders we have, … You don’t pick generals off park benches. … They are experts at...

The media “could not be policed from without and had to be policed from within.

Courage was not something one picked out of the air. It was something like a bank account. You could withdraw only so much before it was necessary to stop, to take the time to make...

There’s been historical conflict between China and Russia for well over 1,000 years,

A lively discussion is usually helpful, because the hottest fire makes the hardest steel.

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

Panic is something that good operations officers plan for.

on the edge of my seat.

There are only two ways we can be beaten: we die or we give up. And we’re not giving up.

Clancy comments that the subtleties of national character can impact the world stage by making espionage more difficult. Americans were quirky by nature, making the sorts of eccentric moves that had to be followed up...

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?

Poor people have poor options. Chavez found the Army almost by accident, and had found it a true open of security and opportunity and fellowship and respect.

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.

So few people were left who knew what combat was like. People were so easy to frighten. Combat taught a man what to fear – and what to ignore.

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...

Cheating was a concept both foreign and integral to the fighting of wars.

To a man, professional soldiers despised terrorists, and each would dream about getting them in an even-up-battle; the idea of the Field of Honor had never died for the real professionals. It was the place...

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

Jack missed the normality of merely reading the paper.

The good old days are now.

The President was trapped – and with nearly every president, it had come about from his own words. Presidential promises and statements… The people had this annoying way of remembering them. And even if they...

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

Not every story started off big enough to notice.

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...

Collaboration on a book is the ultimate unnatural act.

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

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

One presidential advisor to another: “If the world made sense, we’d all have to find honest work.

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

Ice hockey is the closest thing to religion permitted by the Soviet Union.

A rare academic (was) a man who knew what he didn’t know.