How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
He would break her, thought Bourne. Kill her if he had to. He would learn the truth. (14.193)
Bourne is thinking about killing and breaking Jacqueline Lavier, the owner of the fashion house that Carlos uses as a message relay. Lavier is involved in criminal activities, but she's not actually a physical threat to Bourne. He plans to torture and kill her, anyway, in order to get information about his identity. Are his plans just, or are they selfish and brutal?
Bourne never carries these plans through, though. Does that mean he was just boasting to himself, and isn't actually willing to do such things? Are we supposed to be impressed with his toughness and capacity for violence? Or maybe the point is that Bourne is imperfect, and we should respect him more for not giving in to some of his more unpleasant tendencies?
Quote #8
"I loathe him. He stands for everything I hate in Washington. The right schools, houses in Georgetown, farms in Virginia, quiet meetings at their clubs. They've got their tight little world and you don't break in—they run it all. The bastards.The superior, self-inflated gentry of Washington. They use other men's intellects, other men's work, wrapping it all into decisions bearing their imprimaturs. And if you're on the outside, you become part of that amorphous entity, a 'damn fine staff.'" (20.4)
Gillette, the American academic intelligence officer, explains that he's never gotten enough credit and that everyone has treated him unjustly. Therefore, he feels justified in betraying and killing everyone. As a result, he gets himself killed. Justice all around?
Quote #9
"But once a terrorist, always a terrorist, don't you forget that."
"I can't agree. People change."
"Not about some things. No terrorist ever forgets how effective he's been; he lives on it." (24.34-26)
Bourne says that if General Villiers was once involved in violence, he'll always find violence effective and appealing—the bad guys always stay bad guys. It's an interesting argument, since it seems to apply to Bourne himself. He is also a man of violence, and he is, maybe, trying to change. Villiers and Bourne are both "good," yet both still use violence to gain their ends. This passage seems to say that you need to renounce violence to be a good person. But in the rest of the book, justice and violence seem to be compatible.