“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.”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Debt of Honor
“The remarkable thing was that everyone accepted the entire process, seemingly as normal as physical laws of nature, despite the fact that it was really as ethereal as a rainbow. The money did not physically exist. Even “real” money was only specially made paper printed with black ink on the front and green on the back. What backed the money was not gold or something of intrinsic value, but rather the collective belief that money had value because it had to have such value.”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Debt of Honor
“A lively discussion is usually helpful, because the hottest fire makes the hardest steel.”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Debt of Honor
“ 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 ”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Debt of Honor
“War is the ultimate criminal act, an armed robbery writ large. And it’s always about greed. It’s always a nation that wants something another nation has. And you defeat that nation by recognizing what it wants and denying it to them.”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Debt of Honor
“What backed the money was not gold or something of intrinsic value, but rather the collective belief that money had value because it had to have such value.”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Debt of Honor
“We cannot fail to win—unless we fail to try.”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Debt of Honor
“Diplomatic exchange combined the worst aspects of explaining things to a toddler and talking with a mother-in-law. It was dull, it was tedious, it was exasperating, and it was necessary.”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Debt of Honor
“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.”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Debt of Honor
“Like many weak men, he made a great ceremony of personal strength and power.”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Debt of Honor
“There was nothing like an appeal to honor. It was a virtue that all craved, even those who lacked it. Fundamentally, honor was itself a debt, a code of behavior, a promise, something inside yourself that you owed to the others who saw it in you.”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Debt of Honor
“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 others didn't exist.”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Debt of Honor
“never pick up a baby to kiss it," trent said. "they always puke on you, and somebody always gets a picture. always kiss the baby in the mom's arms.”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Debt of Honor
“You have to know the things you don’t know. You have to figure out what the questions are before you can start looking for answers.”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Debt of Honor
“if you don’t write it down—” “Then it never happened.”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Debt of Honor
“landing a helicopter aboard a ship reminded him of two porcupines making love. It wasn’t lack of willingness; it was just that you couldn’t afford any mistakes. They”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Debt of Honor
Tom Clancy
Born place: in Baltimore County, Maryland, The United States
Born date April 12, 1947
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“Ah, it's an ill-conscience that's such an enemy to rest!”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, quote from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales of Terror
“There're things we keep hidden from one another. Things we hide from ourselves. Things that are kept hidden from us. And things no one knows. You always learn the damnedest things at the worst possible times.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Changes
“The error all women commit. Why can’t you women love us, faults
and all? Why do you place us on monstrous pedestals? We have all feet of
clay, women as well as men; but when we men love women, we love them
knowing their weaknesses, their follies, their imperfections, love them all
the more, it may be, for that reason. It is not the perfect, but the imperfect,
who have need of love. It is when we are wounded by our own hands,
or by the hands of others, that love should come to cure us – else what use
is love at all? All sins, except a sin against itself, Love should forgive. All
lives, save loveless lives, true Love should pardon. A man’s love is like that.
It is wider, larger, more human than a woman’s. Women think that they
are making ideals of men. What they are making of us are false idols
merely. You made your false idol of me, and I had not the courage to
come down, show you my wounds, tell you my weaknesses. I was afraid
that I might lose your love, as I have lost it now.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from An Ideal Husband
“Is power like the vis viva and the quantite d’avancement? That is, is it conserved by the universe, or is it like shares of a stock, which may have great value one day, and be worthless the next? If power is like stock shares, then it follows that the immense sum thereof lately lost by B[olingbroke] has vanished like shadows in sunlight. For no matter how much wealth is lost in stock crashes, it never seems to turn up, but if power is conserved, then B’s must have gone somewhere. Where is it? Some say ‘twas scooped up by my Lord R, who hid it under a rock, lest my Lord M come from across the sea and snatch it away. My friends among the Whigs say that any power lost by a Tory is infallibly and insensibly distributed among all the people, but no matter how assiduously I search the lower rooms of the clink for B’s lost power, I cannot seem to find any there, which explodes that argument, for there are assuredly very many people in those dark salons. I propose a novel theory of power, which is inspired by . . . the engine for raising water by fire. As a mill makes flour, a loom makes cloth and a forge makes steel, so we are assured this engine shall make power. If the backers of this device speak truly, and I have no reason to deprecate their honesty, it proves that power is not a conserved quantity, for of such quantities, it is never possible to make more. The amount of power in the world, it follows, is ever increasing, and the rate of increase grows ever faster as more of these engines are built. A man who hordes power is therefore like a miser who sits on a heap of coins in a realm where the currency is being continually debased by the production of more coins than the market can bear. So that what was a great fortune, when first he raked it together, insensibly becomes a slag heap, and is found to be devoid of value. When at last he takes it to the marketplace to be spent. Thus my Lord B and his vaunted power hoard what is true of him is likely to be true of his lackeys, particularly his most base and slavish followers such as Mr. Charles White. This varmint has asserted that he owns me. He fancies that to own a man is to have power, yet he has got nothing by claiming to own me, while I who was supposed to be rendered powerless, am now writing for a Grub Street newspaper that is being perused by you, esteemed reader.”
― Neal Stephenson, quote from The System of the World
“The faculty to think objectively is reason; the emotional attitude behind reason is that of humility. To be objective, to use one's reason, is possible only if one has achieved an attitude of humility, if one has emerged from the dreams of omniscience and omnipotence which one has as a child. Love, being dependent on the relative absence of narcissism, requires the developement of humility, objectivity and reason.
I must try to see the difference between my picture of a person and his behavior, as it is narcissistically distorted, and the person's reality as it exists regardless of my interests, needs and fears.”
― Erich Fromm, quote from The Art of Loving
Mr Palomar
Chains
Death Watch
Interesting Times
Vessel
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