Top 35 Vince Flynn Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “If you’re not busy living, you’re dying.”

— Vince Flynn

2. “No matter how bad you think you have it, there’s always – always somebody who’s got it way, way worse.”

— Vince Flynn

3. “There’s a lot more to publishing a book than writing it and slapping a cover on it.”

— Vince Flynn

4. “I have a history of disregarding orders. – Mitch Rapp.”

— Vince Flynn

5. “A good football team plays offense and defense. You have to be aggressive and disrupt.”

— Vince Flynn

6. “I just look at what’s going on in the world.”

— Vince Flynn

7. “A major theme in all my books is that the CIA is not only the first line of defense but they should also be the first line of offense.”

— Vince Flynn

8. “It’s this upside-down world that we live in where we afford political correctness to the most intolerant group of individuals on the planet.”

— Vince Flynn

9. “Americans had grown soft with all of their rights and personal freedom. They had no idea how harsh the rest of the world was.”

— Vince Flynn

10. “It was war, and in war the truth was almost always the first casualty.”

— Vince Flynn

11. “I have been blessed to have the same editor and work for a great publishing house.”

— Vince Flynn

12. “It was not possible to reason with unreasonable people.”

— Vince Flynn

13. “For of those to whom much is given, much is required.” Since Ohlmeyer was a gifted mathematician, much.”

— Vince Flynn

14. “We’re all dying, just some of us sooner than others.”

— Vince Flynn

15. “Luke 12:28 was a big one: “For of those to whom much is given, much is required.” Since Ohlmeyer was a.”

— Vince Flynn

16. “It’s what every writer needs: a daybed.”

— Vince Flynn

17. “People, especially successful people, are habitual creatures. They’re organized. This makes them productive – Gus Mitchell.”

— Vince Flynn

18. “I have such bad memories, sitting in the back of a classroom, being told, you know, everybody is going to read a paragraph, and skipping ahead to my paragraph and being mortified and trying to read it enough times so that I wouldn’t stutter and stammer, getting called on, even in high school.”

— Vince Flynn

19. “Rapp took his pathetic self-absorbed emotion and shoved it as far down in his gut as it would go, and he plugged it with the first and only thing he had available – anger. That anger slowly metastasized into a suit of armor. For the first time since the news had hit him, he saw a way out. A faint light at the far end of the cavern. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew he had to head toward it. It was the only thing that offered him hope.”

— Vince Flynn

20. “Besides, give a teacher the choice between a straight-A student who has all the answers and an earnest one who gets better over time, and they’ll pick the earnest one every time.”

— Vince Flynn

21. “In a sense, the business arrangement was a bit like a man leaving his wife for the woman he’s been having an affair with. The fact that the same man decides to then cheat on the woman he originally cheated with should surprise no one, least of all the woman herself.”

— Vince Flynn

22. “He paid his people for their intellect and their opinions, not to play it safe until the answer was obvious.”

— Vince Flynn

23. “I am a huge fan of Alan Furst. Furst is the best in the business – the most talented espionage novelist of our generation.”

— Vince Flynn

24. “I think the more avenues that open up when people want to publish, the better. Some of the authors that want to jump ship from the traditional houses and go on their own, you know what? Good luck. It’s going to be a lot tougher than you think.”

— Vince Flynn

25. “I’m a bit of a Libertarian.”

— Vince Flynn

26. “MIKE Nash glanced anxiously at his watch and then eyed the twin flat-screen monitors. Both prisoners were sleeping soundly. If all went according to plan, their slumber wouldn’t last much longer. The prisoners had been picked up seven days earlier on a routine patrol. At the time, the young GI’s had no idea whom they had stumbled upon. That revelation came later, and by accident. The brass at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan quickly separated the two men from the other 396 enemy.”

— Vince Flynn

27. “The number of elected officials who were willing to put the good of the country ahead of their own ego, and the success of their political party, was minuscule.”

— Vince Flynn

28. “I’m a big believer in free enterprise. If people want to try it, then go for it.”

— Vince Flynn

29. “Men who were frightened to read the entire Koran because they knew they would be confronted with the words of a prophet who would never condone their actions.”

— Vince Flynn

30. “There, he was a lion. Here, he could end up being someone’s lunch.”

— Vince Flynn

31. “Your flanks must always be protected and your center must be anchored with reinforcements. Supplies needed to be secured from raids and scouts needed to be deployed as aggressively as possible to discern the strength and position of the enemy.”

— Vince Flynn

32. “Anybody who knew me growing up calls me Vinny.”

— Vince Flynn

33. “When I give a lot of speeches, they’re always on the fly. I mean, I know what I’m going to say roughly, but I do not – will not read.”

— Vince Flynn

34. “One of the most talented writers out there is Brian Haig.”

— Vince Flynn

35. “The Saudis think that God is on their side, and people who think God is on their side are capable of the most inhumane acts.”

— Vince Flynn

36. “The shock, the pain, the agonizing self-pity over the fact that he would never see her again, never hold her, never smell her, the list went on, and on, and on like some pounding surf that threatened to drown him.”

— Vince Flynn