316 Quotes by Tom Clancy

The most important lesson that came out of Vietnam for me was that Marines take care of Marines.

No complaints. The kid is back in the saddle,” Jackson said, sitting down. “You should have been up in the Tomcat with me last week. Oh, man, I’m finally back in the groove. I was hassling with a guy in an A-4 playing aggressor, and I ruined his day. It was so fine.” He grinned like a lion surveying a herd of crippled antelope. “I’m ready!” “When.

What am I supposed to do about you?

Tradition is important,” Evans said. “For a soldier, tradition is often the reason one carries on when there are so many reasons not to. It’s more than just yourself, more than just your mates – but it’s not just something for soldiers, is it? It is true – or should be true – of any professional community.

Efficiency was a concept foreign to most government agencies, not because there was anything wrong with the people, but because nobody had ever told them to do better.

The human mind has a way of punishing itself for killing a fellow man. It remembers and relives the incident again and again.

Each of a hundred ships, built by the same men at the same yard to the same plans, will have her own special characteristics – most of them bad, really, but after her crew becomes accustomed to them they are spoken of affectionately, particularly in retrospect.

Wars are begun by frightened men. They fear war, but more than that, they fear what will happen if they don’t start one or take equivalent action, I suppose.

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