Identity Quotes in The Bourne Identity

Marie is the main proponent in the novel of the idea that identity exists separate from memory, or history. Here (as often in the book) she insists that whatever Bourne was in the past (one of Carlos's soldiers?) he is now the good man she loves. Do you think your identity is tied to your past and to your memories? Or is there something about your identity that goes beyond those things?

Ultimately, the book confirms Marie's view—Bourne turns out to be a good man and not an assassin. Marie's intuition predicts Bourne's past; the past doesn't predict the essence. (Interestingly enough, in the 2002 film version this is not the case—there, Bourne really was an assassin. In the film, losing his memory and past changed who he was. In the book, it does not.)

Here, d'Anjou is describing Delta—the man Bourne was during the Vietnam War, when he worked in Medusa. In some ways, this sounds like a description of the Bourne we know: all men are still his enemies, and he's still very dangerous.The Bourne we read about isn't especially cold, though: he falls in love with Marie readily enough. Did d'Anjou not understand Delta's character? Did the amnesia change Bourne? Did time change him? We never really learn the answers to those questions; some aspects of Bourne's identity remain a mystery to us—and maybe even to him.

That's David Abbott explaining that Treadstone made up the assassin Cain. You could also see it as a description of fiction. Cain is made up—but so is Bourne, and so is David Webb, and so is David Abbott, for that matter. They're all just characters in a book, where every identity is manufactured. Bourne, in fact, is so many levels of made-up that he's like fiction to the fifth power.