“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
“he had to stand by while there proliferated in his own house such concepts as “the art of living thought” “the graph of spiritual growth” and “action on the wing”. he discovered that a biweekly ”hour of purification” was held regularly under his roof. he demanded an explanation. it turned out that what they meant by this was reading the poems of Stefan George together. Leo Fischel searched his old encyclopedia in vain for the poet’s name. but what irritated him most of all, old-style liberal that he was, was that these green pups referred to all the high government officials, bank presidents, and leading university figures in the Parallel Campaign as “puffed-up little men”. then there were the world-weary airs they gave themselves, complaining that the times had become devoid of great ideas, if there was anyone left who was ready for great ideas. that even “humanity” had become a mere buzzword, as far as they were concerned, and that only “the nation” or, as they called it, “folk and folkways” still really had any meaning.
wiser than their years, they disdained “lust” and “the inflated lie about the crude enjoyment of animal existence” as they called it, but talked so much about supersensuality and mystical desire that the startled listener reacted willy-nilly by feeling a certain tenderness for sensuality and physical desires, and even Leo Fischel had to admit that the unbridled ardor of their language sometimes made the listener feel the roots of their ideas shooting down his legs, though he disapproved, because in his opinion great ideas were meant to be uplifting.”
― Robert Musil, quote from The Man Without Qualities
“Now I understand,” said the last man.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from Childhood's End
“For now, I only wish to make a simple acknowledgement of the woman who held the power just before me.
Of all of us who touched it, I feel she was the most worthy.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages
“Maybe it was a Patty Hearst thing. Stockholm syndrome or whatever it's called when you're being held against your will but then you become sucked in and fall in love. Or if not exactly love, you fall into something you can't see out of. 'I can't shoot a machine gun' becomes 'Hey, this hardly has any kick-back!”
― Augusten Burroughs, quote from Running with Scissors
“There is something sad about people going to bed. You can see they don’t give a damn whether they’re getting what they want out of life or not, you can see they don’t ever try to understand what we’re here for. They just don’t care. Americans or not, they sleep no matter what, they’re bloated mollusks, no sensibility, no trouble with their conscience.
I’d seen too many troubling things to be easy in my mind. I knew too much and not enough. I’d better go out, I said to myself, I’d better go out again. Maybe I’ll meet Robinson. Naturally that was an idiotic idea, but I dreamed it up as an excuse for going out again, because no matter how I tossed and turned on my narrow bed, I couldn’t snatch the tiniest scrap of sleep. Even masturbation, at times like that, provides neither comfort nor entertainment. Then you're really in despair.”
― Louis-Ferdinand Céline, quote from Journey to the End of the Night
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.