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.
It is a principle of diplomacy that one must know something of the truth in order to lie convincingly.
Christ, how did you ever get this screwed up! his mind demanded of him. He knew the answer, but even that was not a full explanation. Different segments of the organism called John Terrance Kelly knew different parts of the whole story, but somehow they'd never all come together, leaving the separate fragments of what had ...once been a tough, smart, decisive and to blunder about in confusion - and despair! There was a happy thought.
I was one of the first generations to watch television. TV exposes people to news, to information, to knowledge, to entertainment. How is it bad?
If you don't write the book, the book ain't gonna get written.
My life is a very simple life thank you
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.
I think about the characters I've created and then I sit down and start typing and see what they will do. There's a lot of subconscious thought that goes on. It amazes me to find out, a few chapters later, why I put someone in a certain place when I did. It's spooky.
Speak your dialogue out loud. If it sounds like the way people talk, then write it down.
To Ronald Wilson Regan, The Fortieth President of The United States: The Man Who Won The War.
They fought their first action in March of 1775. Embarked on eight small ships, they sailed to the Bahamas and captured a British fort near Nassau, seizing gunpowder and supplies. Later, during the Revolutionary War, Marines fought several engagements in their distinctive green coats, such as helping George Washington to cross the Delaware River, and assisting John Paul Jones on the Bonhomme Richard to capture the British frigate Serapis during their famous sea fight.
The KGB still killed people, the KGB would not execute its last prisoner until the final days of its existence in 1991, but by the eighties a termination required paperwork and signatures and a post-action review.
Surviving is much more painful than death.
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.
All field agents have some cowboy in them – even the ones from New York.
Civilians listened to officers, which said a lot about the intelligence of civilians.
Even true believers had consciences, Too bad.
The first rumors about Zenith came from the Czechoslovakians.
I write strictly for fun... as long as it stays fun I'll continue to do it.
What do I know about sex? I’m a married man.
Anti-Catholicism is the last respectable prejudice. You can't hate black people anymore, of course, and you can't hate homosexuals anymore, but you can hate all the Catholics you want.
"Literature" is written material that, 100 years after the death of the author, is forced upon high school students.
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.
I'm a spy. It's not really... I worked for the CIA 15 years. The cover was I worked for the insurance business.
I don't discuss works in progress.
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