Robert Ludlum > Quotes

“I mean, we're all trying to find out who the hell we are, aren't we?”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“Well, let me tell you, gentlemen, the games of the devil are not restricted to those confined to hell. Others can play them.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Ultimatum

“The success of any trap lies in its fundamental simplicity. The reverse trap by the nature of its single complication must be swift and simpler still.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“Sleep is a weapon!”
― Robert Ludlum

“The cruelest thing you can do to a person who's living in panic is to offer him or her hope that turns out false. When the crash comes its intolerable.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Supremacy

“What a man can't remember doesn't exist for him.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“Hope is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is just fine as long as its contained.”
― Robert Ludlum

“I see things and I hear things I do not understand. I'm a skilled, resourceful... vegetable!”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“The easiest thing in the world is to convince yourself that you're right. As one grows old, it is easier still.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“You're on your own now. You are not helpless. You will find your way.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“Credo quia absurdum – I believe because it is absurd.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Janson Directive

“Learn always but never appear to be learning.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Ultimatum

“A man's weaknesses may intrude on his faith but they do not diminish it.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Ultimatum

“How gratifying to be there when arrogance collapses. How much more so to be the instrument. (Alfred Gillette)”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“The most precious jewels are not made of stone, but of flesh.”
― Robert Ludlum

“There'll come a moment when you think you can make it, and you'll try.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“It was important to keep moving. Certain struggles continued. Others had to be brought to a close. The wisdom was in deciding which.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Gemini Contenders

“Perhaps conscience did not always produce cowards. Sometimes it made a man feel better about himself.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Supremacy

“You know, Mr. Webb, you have two commands you use with irritating frequency. 'Move' and 'Let's go.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Supremacy

“Opportunities will present themselves. Recognize them, act on them.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Supremacy

“Men and women walked casually about as they did on the main floor, every now and then stopping one another, exchanging pleasantries or scraps of relevantly irrelevant information. Gossip.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“The easiest thing in the world is to convince yourself that you are right. As one grows older, this is easier still.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“He wasn't smart enough to see it, said Jason Bourne. He couldn't think geometrically.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Supremacy

“Hope, perhaps the most dangerous of all emotions and perhaps the most necessary.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Ambler Warning

“The silence lasted precisely five seconds, during which time eyes roamed other eyes, several throats were cleared, and no one moved in his chair. It was as if a decision were being reached without discussion: evasion was to be avoided. Congressman Efrem Walters, out of the hills of Tennessee by way of the Yale Law Review, was not to be dismissed with facile circumlocution that dealt with the esoterica of clandestine manipulations. Bullshit was out.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“Hate and love are essentially the same in that the person who loves is as easily manipulated as a person who hates”
― Robert Ludlum

“I get annoyed when a self-indulgent writer just shows off what he knows but doesn't really tell a story. To me storytelling is first a craft. Then if you're lucky, it becomes an art form. But first, it's got to be a craft.. You've got to have a beginning, middle and end. And I have sort of applied the theatrical principles to writing. Throw the story in the air and see what's going to happen.”
― Robert Ludlum

“...Summer nights held a special kind of loneliness that gave rise to strange imaginings. One walked the beach alone and thought too much.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Aquitaine Progression

“And then the earth, the world, the planet, the galaxy, and the entire solar system went crazy.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Matlock Paper

“Before taking her into the library, my wife told me she was an old friend in a marriage crisis. A fatuous lie; at her age there are no crises left in marriage, only acceptance and extraction. (General Villiers)”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity