Great minds think alike, but fools seldom differ.

I enjoy this sentence because it reminds me of all the times my sisters and I would have these really amazing (in our own minds) ideas. We’d make up a song and sing “great minds think alike,” which my mom would reply “fools seldom differ.” My sisters and I would just giggle at our mother and continue on with the plan we had set out to accomplish.

The first part of the sentence “great minds think alike” is a common phrase. The “fools seldom differ” part of the sentence is widely known in Britain, and rarely heard of here in the U.S. I couldn’t tell you why.

Now, I’m not sure if selecting a quote from an anonymous source actually counts as a favorite sentence. It probably doesn’t. Which is why I have backup. And it comes from a local source, of sorts.

I first started reading Tom Clancy the summer before my freshman year of high school. I had chosen to read, and write about, Clancy’s book Patriot Games. I was fascinated by this book and loved the character Jack Ryan. I was only 14 at the time, so I wasn’t familiar with Clancy and didn’t know that Ryan was introduced years before in The Hunt for Red October.

(Sidenote: I still haven’t read that book, and the movie deliciously bores me.)

Since reading Patriot Games, I’ve read every book after where Jack Ryan is the main character. Eerily, there is some prognostication on Clancy’s book Executive Orders, where a key plot point is similiar to the events of September 11. Executive Orders was published in August 1997

During my travels last year, I picked up Clancy’s latest book Ryan-related book, The Teeth of the Tiger. I love that Clancy is a local Baltimore guy. He is a minority owner of the Baltimore Orioles! His books always weave details about local spots, usually Annapolis or Washington, DC. In this particular book, there are two sentences that I just adore.

The first (which is not only the first line of the paragraph, but also the first line of chapter one) is my favorite: “The town of West Odenton, Maryland, isn’t much of a town at all, just a post office for people who live in the general area, a few gas stations and a 7-Eleven, plus the usual fast-food places for people who need a fat-filled breakfast on the drive from Columbia, Maryland, to their jobs in Washington, D.C.”

What a bland and otherwise desolate town Clancy thinks West Odenton to be. He’s not that far off, either.

My other favorite line from this book pretty much explains the title: “If you want to kick the tiger in his ass, you’d better have a plan for dealing with his teeth.” Awesome.

If you haven’t read Clancy, I strongly encourage it. He can get extremely wordy at times, especially when talking about the various weaponry, but his Jack Ryan books are definitely worth a look.