Stephen Coonts > Quotes

“All really great flying adventures begin at dawn.”
― Stephen Coonts

“Don't let the assholes grind you down.”
― Stephen Coonts

“I didn't join the army to shoot Americans. If I wanted to shoot Americans I'd have joined the police.”
― Stephen Coonts, Liberty's Last Stand

“Back when I was a callow youth, if I had known how miserable the hours would be working for the CIA, I would have just told that recruiter to send me in prison instead.”
― Stephen Coonts, The Assassin

“I’ve talked to Molina three times today, and he wants me to pull the rabbit out of the hat now”.”
― Stephen Coonts, The Assassin

“Doing nothing guarantees failure -Rubens”
― Stephen Coonts and William H. Keith, Sea of Terror

“Medicine often tastes bad, but until we fix the government policies that breed poverty, we have condemned the poor, black, white, and brown to a life of economic slavery.”
― Stephen Coonts, Liberty's Last Stand

“God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me. That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave.”
― Stephen Coonts, Liberty's Last Stand

“We are all tossed on the stormy seas of fate, at the mercy of men and forces beyond our power to comprehend, control or deflect. Sometimes we need an illusion.”
― Stephen Coonts, The Art of War

“In America a man’s right to hate his neighbor is protected as it is nowhere else on earth.”
― Stephen Coonts, Under Siege

“I am reminded of the words of that great American patriot Thomas Paine: ‘If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.”
― Stephen Coonts, Liberty's Last Stand

“The president’s chief of staff, Al Grantham, blew up. By reputation, he was one of the most aggressive leftists on the president’s staff, and, although he was white, was of the opinion that white America would have to be conquered. He thought most whites were racists and Nazis.”
― Stephen Coonts, Liberty's Last Stand

“If it floats, flies or fucks, rent—don’t buy!”
― Stephen Coonts, The Red Horseman

“Barry Soetoro’s declaration of martial law stunned the nation. His reason—the need to protect the nation from terrorism—met with widespread skepticism. After all, at least three of the Saturday jihadists had entered with Soetoro’s blessing, over the objections of many politicians and the outraged cries of all those little people out there in the heartland, all those potential victims no one really gave a damn about. His suspension of the writ of habeas corpus went over the heads of most of the millions of people in his audience, since they didn’t know what the writ was or signified. He didn’t stop there. He adjourned Congress until he called it back into session, and announced an indefinite stay on all cases before the courts in which the government was a defendant. His announcement of press and media censorship “until the crisis is past” met with outrage, especially among the talking heads on television, who went ballistic. Within thirty minutes, the listening audience found out what the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus meant: FBI agents arrested select television personalities, including some who were literally on camera, and took them away. Fox News went off the air. Most of the other networks contented themselves with running the tape of Soetoro behind the podium making his announcement, over and over, without comment. During the day FBI agents arrested dozens of prominent conservative commentators and administration critics across the nation, including Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Michelle Malkin, George Will, Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Ralph Peters, Judge Jeanine Pirro, Matt Drudge, Thomas Sowell, Howard Stern, and Charles Krauthammer, among others. They weren’t given a chance to remain silent in the future, but were arrested and taken away to be held in an unknown location until Soetoro decided to release them.”
― Stephen Coonts, Liberty's Last Stand

“The desire of Barry Soetoro to drastically increase the number of non-white voters in America as quickly as possible to enhance the political power of blacks and Hispanics and Muslims and dilute the power of the whites is another.”
― Stephen Coonts, Liberty's Last Stand

“When the rain comes, it does not matter whether you welcome it or hate it—the rain falls upon your head regardless.”
― Stephen Coonts, Hong Kong

“You can function just as long as your superiors have faith and confidence in you. When they lose it—your fault, other people’s fault, whatever—then you have to leave and make room for the next guy. Your time at the plate is over.”
― Stephen Coonts, Liberty

“Death will come for the quick and the bold, the slow and the careful, the wise and the foolish, each and every one.”
― Stephen Coonts, Under Siege

“Everyone has to die sooner or later and he wasn’t afraid of it. Dying is the easy part, like going to sleep. Getting to that moment can be a real bitch, though.”
― Stephen Coonts, The Red Horseman

“His ranch adjoined the Rio Grande, the river that formed the boundary between the United States and Mexico, with its poverty, caste system, and systemic corruption. So the poor Mexicans migrated. Over thirteen million of them, over a fifth of the Mexican population, had crossed that border illegally in the last fifty years and were grubbing for work in the United States, usually for minimum wage, or living on welfare and food stamps. Illiterate, unskilled, and usually unable to speak English, they flooded the schools with their children, kept blue-collar wages low, and formed an underclass that resisted assimilation and required huge amounts of public assistance dollars.”
― Stephen Coonts, Liberty's Last Stand

“When we perish from human memories we are no more. We are well and truly gone, as if we had never been.”
― Stephen Coonts, Cuba

“An American’s enthusiasm for law and order is directly proportional to the degree to which he believes his personal safety or his livelihood is threatened. When the perceived threat recedes, so does his willingness to be policed.”
― Stephen Coonts, Under Siege

“The president is declaring martial law tomorrow. He wants you standing behind him tomorrow at ten o’clock in the press room when he announces it.” Jake Grafton didn’t look surprised. I was flabbergasted, but since I was sitting on the couch against the wall Sal Molina couldn’t see the stunned look on my face unless he turned his head, and he didn’t. “Why?” said Grafton. “These terrorist conspiracies need to be rooted out. We must make sure the American people are safe, and feel safe.” “Horseshit,” Grafton roared, and smacked the desk with both fists. “Pure fucking horseshit! Oh, a million or two jihadists would love to murder Americans, including Soetoro, if they could get here, but if they were a credible threat we’d have heard about it. This is just an excuse for Soetoro to suspend the Constitution and declare himself dictator.” “The American people must be protected, Admiral. The president is taking no chances. No one wants to be the next victim of Islamic terrorists.” “So he is going to rule by decree.” “We face a national emergency.” “And he is going to postpone or cancel the election in November. Isn’t that the real reason for martial law?”
― Stephen Coonts, Liberty's Last Stand

“And a whole lot of people who go flying with him and his pilots get a taste of real flying, not the airline passenger stuff, which is to flying what masturbation is to sex, merely a pale imitation of the real thing.”
― Stephen Coonts, The Cannibal Queen: A Flight Into the Heart of America

“The sun coming through the gaps in the drifting clouds gives the land the look of pastels. No wonder several generations of artists have been enchanted by New Mexico. This place is enough to make Monet’s knees quiver.”
― Stephen Coonts, The Cannibal Queen: A Flight Into The Heart Of America

“with the Communists in power, nothing in China is worth real money. That’s the lesson the Americans and British and Japanese are going to learn the hard way.”
― Stephen Coonts, Hong Kong

“To the delight of visiting American sailors, the British still had a military base there, Changi, and shared it with those stout lads from Down Under, the Australians, who naturally came supplied with Down Under lassies. Australian women were the glory of Singapore. These tall, lithe creatures with tanned, muscular legs and striking white teeth that were forever being displayed in dazzling smiles somehow completed the picture, made it whole. You ran into them at Raffles, the old hotel downtown with ceiling fans and rattan chairs and doddery old gentlemen in white suits sipping gin. You ran into them in the lobbies and restaurants of the new western hotels and in the bazaars and emporiums. You saw them strolling the boulevards and haggling with small Chinese women in baggy trousers for sapphires and opals. You saw them everywhere, young, tan, enjoying life, the center of attention wherever they were. It helped that their colorful tropical frocks contrasted so vividly with the drab trousers and white shirts that seemed to be the Singaporean national costume. They were like songbirds surrounded by sparrows. “If Qantas didn’t bring them here, the United Nations should supply them as a gesture of good will to all human kind.” Flap Le Beau stated this conclusion positively to Jake Grafton and the Real McCoy as they stood outside Raffles Hotel surveying the human parade on the sidewalk. “I think I’m in love,” the Real McCoy told his companions. “I want one of those for my very own.”
― Stephen Coonts, The Intruders

“Can you believe that? Americans spitting on the men who have sworn to defend them, on the men who’ve sworn to obey the orders of the elected, civilian government.”
― Stephen Coonts, Flight of the Intruder

“As the governor scanned it, Swim explained. “Liberal progressive policies for the last fifty years or so have devastated the poor people of America. Welfare; aid to dependent families; food stamps; essentially free medical care; schools that try to prepare everyone for a four-year college degree, when only a fraction of the poor people will ever want or get one; lack of technical training; the breakdown of the black family—all those things have led us to where we are.”
― Stephen Coonts, Liberty's Last Stand

“The man was a case study for those fools who believed that a politician’s character didn’t matter as long as he was on their side. The truth was that Kalugin had no side but his own: he was as ready to devour his supporters as he was his enemies.”
― Stephen Coonts, Fortunes of War