Tom Clancy

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.

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 was one of the first generations to watch television. TV exposes people to news, to information, to knowledge, to entertainment. How is it bad?

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Wars are begun by frightened men.

Success will ruin your life.

Fundamentally, I think of myself as a storyteller, not a writer.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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 role of fiction is supposed to be divorced from the role of reality.

When I was doing 'Executive Orders,' I talked about Ebola to people who know about infectious diseases and their use as weapons of war, and guys told me that these weapons are more psychological than physical.

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

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

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

Helicopters don't fly, they vibrate so badly the ground rejects them.