Quotes from Robert Ludlum

Call it the courage of an insignificant goat who has survived.

Of course not. A goat does not willingly enter the wolf's cave." "Goats are surefooted; they've got an accurate sense of smell." "And they are cautious, mein Herr. Because the wolf is faster, infinitely more aggressive. There would be only one chase. The goat's last.

for life was lived for active memories; the dormant ones lost meaning.

he'd long ago accepted the fact that berlin more than suspected him. in a way it was his protection; he'd by no means won every roll of the dice. if the enemy killed him, someone else would take his place. the enemy would have to start all over again. he was a known commodity... accept an existing devil.

a few photographs, they hit page one. Denials, they come later—on page fifty—between salami ads.… Take your choice, Mr. Trevayne. But think it over good.

Indiscriminate use among unintelligent leads to chaos.

Hope is the only thing stronger than fear.

A corruption of intentions.

Better the devil you can live with than one you don't know.

If a stress situation results in injury, be aware of the fact that the damage may be as much psychological as physical. You may have a very real revulsion to pain and bodily harm. Don't take risks, but if there's time, give yourself a chance to adjust. Don't panic.…

warmed by the cold sea around him.

It's an insoluble dilemma, really. Presidents change, different men with different temperaments and appetites sit in the Oval Office. However, a long-range intelligence strategy doesn't change, not one like this. Yet an offhand remark over a glass of whiskey in a postpresidential conversation, or an egotistical phrase in a memoir, can blow that same strategy right to hell. There isn't a day that we don't worry about those men who have survived the White House.

Above all else, he had to show control, for what afflicted him was so uncontrollable. He had to appear completely lucid—sane within the boundaries of his memory.

Did your horoscope say your stars were in a bad alignment? Did an entrail reading priest find something nasty in the offal? I mean, look, if you know something I should know, let's talk about it. If you got a racially justify belief, more power to you. But how many times do we have to go through this? We are grownups we should be responsive to facts. Not feelings.

And I know now it will happen over and over again until it stops for you. You hear words, you see images, and fragments of things come back to you that you can't understand, but because they're there you condemn yourself. You always will condemn yourself until someone proves to you that whatever you were Ã¢â'¬Â¦ there are others using you, who will sacrifice you. But there's also someone else out there who wants to help you, help us. That's the message!

concentrate on nothing Ã¢â'¬Â¦ and everything. The outlines of the truth were being presented to him, shape by enigmatic shape, each more startling than the last. He was not at all sure he was capable—mentally capable—of absorbing a great deal more.

Oh, God, she loathed them all! Mindless, stupid men. Playing with the lives of other men, knowing so little, thinking they knew so much.

Oh, God, she loathed them all! Mindless, stupid men. Playing with the lives of other men, knowing so little, thinking they knew so much. They had not listened! They never listened until it was too late, and then only with stern forbearance and strong reminders of what might have been—had things been as they were perceived to be, which they were not. The corruption came from blindness, the lies from obstinacy and embarrassment. Do not embarrass the powerful; the napalm said it all.

I mean, we're all trying to find out who the hell we are, aren't we?

Well, let me tell you, gentlemen, the games of the devil are not restricted to those confined to hell. Others can play them.

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.

Sleep is a weapon!

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.

What a man can't remember doesn't exist for him.