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Two questions form the foundation of all novels: What if? and What next? (A third question, What now?, is one the author asks himself every 10 minutes or so but it's more a cry than a question.) Every novel begins with the speculative question, What if X happened? That's how you start.

Tom Clancy

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Tom Clancy
Age: 66 †
Born: 1947
Born: April 12
Died: 2013
Died: October 1
Non-Fiction Writer
Novelist
Prosaist
Writer
Baltimore
Maryland
Thomas Leo Clancy Jr.
Thomas Leo Tom Clancy Jr.
Thomas Leo Tom Clancy
Jr.
Thomas Clancy
Thomas L. Clancy
Happened
Thirds
Asks
Begins
Start
Cry
Next
Foundation
Two
Questions
Speculative
Form
Novel
Novels
Every
Minutes
Author
Question
Third

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Surviving is much more painful than death.
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Liberation and equal-rights issues notwithstanding, it was a man's job to make a woman feel cherished and respected.
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Sunday was the normal day for the political awareness session at sea. Ordinarily Putin would have officiated, reading some Pravada editorials, followed by selected quotations from the works of Lenin and a discussion of the lessons to be learned from the readings. It is very much like a church service.
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The Good of the People was a laudable enough goal, but in denying a man's soul, an enduring part of his being, Marxism stripped away the foundation of human dignity and individual value. It also cast aside the objective measure of justice and ethics which, he decided, was the principal legacy of religion to civilized life.
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Civilians listened to officers, which said a lot about the intelligence of civilians.
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Fundamentally, I think of myself as a storyteller, not a writer.
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Every novel begins with the speculative question, What if X happened? That's how you start.
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One thing about flying that he never got used to was that no matter how awful the weather was on the ground, if you flew high enough you could always find the sun.
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There is more to military units than hardware. There is the character of the unit's personnel: their strengths, experience, and knowledge, their ability to get along and work together amid the horrors of the battlefield. There is an almost undefinable quality. That quality is the Marine Corps' secret weapon. Their edge. That quality is their ethos.
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The first rumors about Zenith came from the Czechoslovakians.
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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.
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There is a long and honorable tradition of citizens in service to their nation that goes back at least as far as Cincinnatus, the Roman citizen who, more than once answered his country's call, then returned to his farm and his family and his work.
Tom Clancy
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She didn't strike me as a crossword in ink kind of girl
Tom Clancy
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Even true believers had consciences, Too bad.
Tom Clancy
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If you don't write the book, the book ain't gonna get written.
Tom Clancy
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I write strictly for fun... as long as it stays fun I'll continue to do it.
Tom Clancy
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Books and movies are different art forms with different rules. And because of that, they never translate exactly.
Tom Clancy
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That's the ultimate pornography. There's nothing more pornographic than glorifying war.
Tom Clancy
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I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.
Tom Clancy
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There are people in government who don't want other people to know what they know. It's just another example of elitism. And I spit on elitism. Show me an elitist, and I'll show you a loser.
Tom Clancy