Tom Clancy: Quotes about people

Tom Clancy was American author. Explore interesting quotes on people.
Tom Clancy: 166   quotes 1   like

“We saw people in Northern Ireland, Catholics acting like savages and Protestants acting like savages… We have people who call themselves Muslims acting like savages. It's not because of their religion, it's because they're fools.”

Tom Clancy

Interview with Judy Woodruff https://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=kSjrLYT1hr8 (11 September 2001), CNN
2000s
Context: Ending your own life is not something the average person does. Everybody's assuming these are Islamic terrorists. Well, if so they've defiled their own religion. Islam does not permit suicide. It says you go to hell if you do something like this... We saw people in Northern Ireland, Catholics acting like savages and Protestants acting like savages... We have people who call themselves Muslims acting like savages. It's not because of their religion, it's because they're fools.

People , Religion , Fools

“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.”

Tom Clancy

1990s, Schafer interview (1995)
Context: 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. Take the AEGIS system in the navy. It's a radar computer system for air-battle management. What it does is give the commander an extra 15 minutes to decide what he's going to do to fight a battle, and those 15 minutes are decisively important.

War , People , Fight

“I think it's going to be remembered as the last major war on planet Earth, if we're lucky, if we maintain our foreign policy properly. … It will be remembered as the last time major countries had to put people in the field and put them in harm's way.”

Tom Clancy

On the 1991 Gulf War
1990s, CNN interview (1999)
Context: I think it's going to be remembered as the last major war on planet Earth, if we're lucky, if we maintain our foreign policy properly. … It will be remembered as the last time major countries had to put people in the field and put them in harm's way. It may be the last of all human nature wars, which is a nice way to remember any kind of a war, as the last one.

War , People , Way , Thinking

“Historically, anything that gets information to people is good for the world. The most important human being who ever lived, if you want to leave out religious figures, would be Johannes Gutenberg… that's when the liberation of human thought happened, because people could read the thoughts of people across the world, and have thoughts of their own, and publish them and spread information around.”

Tom Clancy

2000s, Larry King Live (2000)
Context: Historically, anything that gets information to people is good for the world. The most important human being who ever lived, if you want to leave out religious figures, would be Johannes Gutenberg... that's when the liberation of human thought happened, because people could read the thoughts of people across the world, and have thoughts of their own, and publish them and spread information around. Anything that gets information to people is good. America has prospered because we're the most information-friendly society in the world.

People , World , Reading

“The drafters of the Constitution had made one simple but far-reaching error. They'd assumed that the people selected by The People to manage the nation would be as honest and honorable as they'd been. One could almost hear the "Oops!"”

Tom Clancy book The Bear and the Dragon

emanating from all those old graves. The people who'd drafted the Constitution had sat in a room dominated by George Washington himself, and whatever honor they'd lacked he'd probably provided from his own abundant supply, just by sitting there and looking at them. The current Congress had no such mentor/living god to take George's place, and more was the pity, Ryan thought.
The Bear and the Dragon (2000), Ch. 12 : Conflicts of the Pocket
2000s

People , Error

“What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It's not good at much else.”

Tom Clancy

2000s, Kudlow & Cramer interview (2003)

People , Freedom

“Colleges typically did not tell you that ninety percent of your education came after you hung the parchment on the wall. People might ask for a rebate.”

Tom Clancy book The Teeth of the Tiger

Source: The Teeth of the Tiger

People , Education

“The more information a guy has, the more likely he is to say, "Hey, King Charlie, you really blew that call." That's why democracy happened. 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.”

Tom Clancy

1990s, Schafer interview (1995)

People , Guy , Democracy , Knowledge

“The army led America in integration… The army recognized early on that, you know, black people are pretty much the same as white people; they just tend to be a little bit darker. They make just as good soldiers.”

Tom Clancy

2000s, In Depth with Tom Clancy (2002)

People

“The People's Republic of China is still a Marxist, Leninist, Maoist nation. So, you know, communism is still involved there. They haven't figured their way out of that particularly ideological box yet and that's their misfortune.”

Tom Clancy

2000s, Larry King Live (2000)

People , Way , Communication , Box

“There's two kinds of people in the world, the ones who need to be told and the ones who figure it out all by themselves.”

Tom Clancy book Without Remorse

Without Remorse (1993), p. 231
1990s

People , World

“China has a lot of people and not enough space and the Russians have not too many people and a lot of space.”

Tom Clancy

2000s, CNN interview (2000)

People

“Look, technology is another word for tool. There was a time when nails were high-tech. There was a time when people had to be told how to use a telephone. We got past that. Technology is just a tool. People use tools to improve their lives.”

Tom Clancy

1990s, Schafer interview (1995)

People , Time , Past

“There's been historical conflict between China and Russia for well over 1,000 years. … People forget that the Mongols came all the way to the Baltic Sea and all the way to where St. Petersburg is today … And the Russians have a good sense of history and they remember that.”

Tom Clancy

2000s, CNN interview (2000)

People , Way , History , Sense

“People live longer today than they ever have. They live happier lives, they have more knowledge, they have more information. All this is the result of communications technology and the tools with which man has equipped himself. How is any of that bad?”

Tom Clancy

1990s, Schafer interview (1995)

People , Communication , Knowledge

“I'd rather talk to people who do things than complain about other people who do things. I say they're idiots.”

Tom Clancy

1990s, Schafer interview (1995)

People

“Fifteen years ago, there was this country called the Soviet Union that had over 10,000 nuclear warheads pointed at us… they're not there anymore. That's a good thing. And when people talk about how the world is more dangerous now than it was because we had these terrorists running around, my reply is, you know, a terrorist is like a buzzing mosquito. About 15 years ago, there was a great, big vampire bat; that's several orders of magnitude different from a mosquito. So the world is much safer — a lot safer than it was. It's not perfectly safe, but it's a heck of a lot safer than it was.”

Tom Clancy

2000s, Larry King Live (2000)

People , World , Country

“People, I am actually fairly smart. Why has this not occurred to anyone? The information is all out there, if you go looking for it, and the classified stuff just comes from analyzing the unclassified stuff and connecting the dots…”

Tom Clancy

"Clancy Speaks Again, Briefly" (12 February 2000)
2000s

People

“I've been telling people for 12 years that if you want to get a nuclear device into the United States, just bring it through the port of Miami disguised as cocaine.”

Tom Clancy

2000s, Kudlow & Cramer interview (2003)

People