Eric Van Lustbader > Quotes

“Only in the stillness of thought can decisions be properly made.”
― Eric Lustbader

“I never used an outline until I started "The Bourne Legacy" project for which I was required to write an outline. To be honest, I thought I'd hate the idea, assuming that if I'd thought of all the ideas at the outset I'd have to incentive to actually write the book, because for me part of the joy of writing are the surprises you come upon as the book takes shape. But something curious and exciting happened. As I wrote the outline, some sections would be very detailed, others quite sketchy, so that whole portions of the book would be covered by one line, such as "Bourne is chased by Khan through Budapest," which when I wrote the novel turned out to be 40-50 pages! Now I'll never write a novel without first doing an outline. Looking back on it, I used to get bogged down in extraneous characters and situations, especially during the first 100 pages (which I find the most difficult to write) that I would later have to scrap, wasting time and energy, and frustrating me. Now that never happens.”
― Eric Van Lustbader

“tranquillity is only one aspect of the harmony of life. And harmony is what all people strive to achieve. Harmony is the basis of a clear mind, of a good and powerful karma.”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Ninja

“To survive is not enough. - Bujun saying”
― Eric van lustbader

“Keep your friends close, Sun-Tzu had written. Your enemies closer.”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Bourne Enigma

“Laughing at what you didn't have and never would was better than letting it depress you,”
― Eric Van Lustbader

“We're brought up with a kind of romanticism that's so false it leads us astray. Falling in love and marriage is forever. The movies, then TV told us that, even—especially—the commercials.”
― Eric Van Lustbader

“To abandon duty is to destroy that which makes any individual unique and capable of prodigious feats.”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Ninja

“haragei—the art of balance and power emanating from the lower belly. Haragei was the basis of all Japanese martial arts, from sumo to karate to the almost extinct harakei. The”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Bourne Enigma

“Acceptance of karma should not be confused with fatalism. We are all, to a great extent, masters of our own fate. But also we must learn to bow before the inevitable: this is the true meaning of acceptance and it is only this which brings the harmony without which life is not really worth living.”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Ninja

“A cretin can kill you just as efficiently as a genius, and usually a whole lot quicker because a cretin has no conscience.”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Bourne Deception

“In Morocco, he was back in his element, a shark moving through deep and dangerous waters. But for thousands of years sharks have been bred to survive dark and dangerous waters. So too, Leonid Arkadin.”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Bourne Objective

“Anticipation, she would say, locks you into a mind-set, which, whether you realize it or not, dictates your actions, even though they may be the wrong ones. If you don’t anticipate, your mind is clear, your actions develop as the situation unfolds.”
― Eric Van Lustbader, Four Dominions

“Take the hand you’re dealt and then finesse it,”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Bourne Deception

“All of life’s great lessons involve loss,”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Testament: A Novel

“His colleagues put up with his shenanigans, his media-hogging”
― Eric Van Lustbader, Robert Ludlum's™ The Bourne Initiative

“Huperzia serrata. A”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Bourne Betrayal

“faith is a tree, growing new branches even in the face of a storm. And when the time is right, those new branches bear fruit. It’s faith that sustains me, faith that makes sense out of chaos, faith that holds the world together in the face of crisis.” She took another, smaller drag from the cigarette. “I wish I could make you understand. When you have faith, despair is not an option. I grieve for Dad. Inside I’m crushed because a part”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Testament: A Novel

“Designed in the neoclassical style by Marcel Dourgnon, the dusky-rose-colored Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, at Tahrir Square, was the first purpose-built museum edifice in the world. In 1902, the thousands of artifact treasures, spanning five thousand years of Egyptian dynastic history, were transferred there from the palace of Ismail Pasha in Giza, where they had been displayed for more than a decade. Bourne”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Bourne Enigma

“... war is long, life is short.”
― Eric Van Lustbader, French Kiss

“The worst your enemy can do is kill you. The worst your enemy can do is betray you. Fear only the indifferent because at their silent consent treachery and death flourish.”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Bourne Deception

“Modern empires rise and fall not on armies, ideology, or violence, but on the instantaneous flow of capital. —Boris Karpov”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Bourne Enigma

“Because knowing where we come from allows us to know who we are. Our past is part of us.
We can't outrun our past, no matter how hard we try.”
― Eric Van Lustbader

“If you insist on reducing it to its basic elements, it's the sure and simple knowledge that there's something more out there, something greater than yourself, than mankind: a grand plan, a design that can't be comprehended by you or by any other human being, because it is numinous, it is God's design, something only He can fathom.”
― Eric Van Lustbader, First Daughter

“His”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Bourne Imperative

“If one person believes a story, it becomes a truth—for him. That’s why history is such a mare’s nest: it’s difficult to determine what happened as opposed to what people thought happened, wanted to happen, felt should have happened. The slant is everything,”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Testament: A Novel

“he was a child of eight, in the aftermath of his first kill. The first taste of blood was always the sharpest, but, for him, the blood didn’t matter as much as it did”
― Eric Van Lustbader, Robert Ludlum's™ The Bourne Initiative

“schmendrick.”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Ninja

“memorable entertainment package takes old-school Hollywood theory and modern electronic know-how.” Borz”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Bourne Enigma

“Because doing the right thing is not the goal, doing the best thing is what you must strive for.”
― Eric Van Lustbader, The Testament: A Novel