Tom Clancy
Tom Clancy
Thomas Leo Clancy, Jr.was an American novelist and video game designer best known for his technically detailed espionage and military-science story lines set during and after the Cold War. Seventeen of his novels were bestsellers, and more than 100 million copies of his books are in print. His name was also used on movie scripts written by ghost writers, nonfiction books on military subjects, and video games. He was a part-owner of the Baltimore Orioles and vice-chairman of their community...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth12 April 1947
CityBaltimore, MD
CountryUnited States of America
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
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.
Life is about learning; when you stop learning, you die.
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.
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 one can take it away.
Man is a creature of hope and invention, both of which belie the idea that things cannot be changed.
What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It's not good at much else.
Fix your eyes forward on what you can do, not back on what you cannot change.
The good old days are now.
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.
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 role of fiction is supposed to be divorced from the role of reality.
Ebola is a nasty disease to get. It's scary. But as a weapon, it is probably not likely. Ebola is a difficult malady to weaponize and deliver efficiently.
I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.