Michael Reaves > Quotes

“In an infinity of worlds, anything is not only possible, it's mandatory.”
― Michael Reaves, InterWorld

“You could only to your best, and hope for a strong tail wind to waft you faster to your destination. Until then, you played the game, kept your tongue civil, and spoke favorably of your enemies when either they or their spies might overhear.”
― Michael Reaves, Jedi Twilight

“It was a pity that most people didn't actually go to libraries anymore, not when they could sit in the comfort of their own quarters and access files electronically. Want to read the new hot interstellar caper novel, or the latest issue of Beings holozine? Input the name, touch a control, and zip - it's in your datapad. . . .
There were, of course, old-fashioned beings who would still actually trundle down to where the files were. On some worlds the most ancient libraries kept books - actual bound volumes of printed matter - lined up neatly on shelves, and readers would walk the aisles, take a volume down, sniff the musty-dusty odor of it, and then carry it to a table to leisurely peruse.
There weren't many of those readers left, and they were growing rarer all the time . . . But there were some who still knew how to actually turn a page - and for those who were willing to do so, the rewards could be great indeed.”
― Michael Reaves and Steve Perry, Star Wars: Death Star

“But the reality was that there was only the Force. It was above such petty concepts as positive and negative, black and white, good and evil. The only difference worthy of note was this: The Jedi saw the Force as an end in itself; the Sith knew that it was a means to an end. And that end was Power.”
― Michael Reaves, Shadow Hunter

“I-Five had both hands up, the index fingers extended, like a child pretending to point a pair of blasters.”
― Michael Reaves, Star Wars: Darth Maul - Shadow Hunter

“Hey, I don’t make the rules, I just work here. You have a complaint, take it up with the Emperor.”
― Michael Reaves, Star Wars: Death Star

“(one of the fun things about being a scientist is being able to make up new words)”
― Michael Reaves, The Silver Dream

“All we really know of the universe is what filters in through our senses, and that isn’t a whole lot. Take the electromagnetic spectrum. It includes virtually every ripple of energy that powers the cosmos, from the long, lazy radio waves we communicate with through microwaves that we cook with all the way up to X-rays and gamma rays, which pack enough punch into their wavelengths to outshine an entire galaxy. All that majesty, all that infinite variety of energy, and all we see is a narrow little slice of it: seven measly colors. It’s like being invited to a royal banquet and then only being allowed to pick the crumbs off one plate.”
― Michael Reaves, The Silver Dream

“Whether a man bows down to God or Mammon or to Cthulhu in his dark house at R’lyeh is no affair of mine . . . until he sheds one drop of blood not his own in his deity’s name. Then God have mercy upon him, for I shall not.”
― Michael Reaves, Shadows Over Baker Street

“Those eyes, hidden deep in that hooded cloak, could penetrate subterfuge and dissimulation as easily as X-rays penetrated flesh and illuminated the bones for all to see.”
― Michael Reaves, Star Wars: Darth Maul - Shadow Hunter

“The Jedi - how he hated them! How he loathed their hollow sanctimoniousness, their pretense of piety, their hypocrisy. How he longed for the day when their Temple would be a ruin of of smoking rubble, littered with their crushed corpses. If he closed his eyes, he could see the apocalypse of the order as vividly as if it were reality. It was reality, after all - a future reality, but nonetheless valid. It was destined, ordained, predetermined. And he would be instrumental in bringing it about. It was what his entire life had been designed for.”
― Michael Reaves, Star Wars: Darth Maul - Shadow Hunter

“And are you unquestionably certain your haecceity is defined by your moniker?”
― Michael Reaves, The Silver Dream

“And concepts rejected when they came from someone else often looked better when rethought as one’s own. Even the Emperor, it seemed, was not immune to that particular hubris.”
― Michael Reaves, Star Wars: Death Star

“My cheeks were burning like those of a squirrel hoarding jalapeños,”
― Michael Reaves, The Silver Dream

“Goodly intentions are no use without goodly sums of money, Watson.”
― Michael Reaves, Shadows Over Baker Street

“She was working for the Empire, a thing she had sworn she would never do, helping design a vessel that would, in all probability, be the most fearsome weapon the galaxy had ever seen. While it was true that improving the biometrics and seating pattern in an assembly hall was not the same as devising a superlaser that could melt moons, still…
Still, one was either a factor in something’s success, or a factor in its failure.
Working for the enemy, said the little voice she sometimes heard in her head. She often visualized it as a miniature version of herself, shaking a chastising finger. How sad is that?
Not as if I had a choice, is it? she replied mentally. Nobody asked me if I wanted the job, now, did they?
You could have turned it down, the avatar of her conscience shot back.
And been sent back to that serpent’s nest of a planet to rot and die? To what end?
Her inner self fell silent.”
― Michael Reaves, Star Wars: Death Star

“Maul had his flaws, and by far the largest of these was hubris. Though he had said nothing when given the assignment, Sidious knew Maul felt that such a job was beneath his skills. There were times—many times—when Sidious could see Maul’s aura pulsing with the dark stain of impatience.”
― Michael Reaves, Shadow Hunter

“She was called Victoria because she had beaten us in battle seven hundred years before, and she was called Gloriana because she was glorious, and she was called the Queen because the human mouth was not shaped to say her true name.”
― Michael Reaves, Shadows Over Baker Street

“Someday, if he lived long enough, Atour intended to write a history of the times that had begun with the Clone Wars and run through the current conflict between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. Of course he had to wait and see who won before he could get to that part, but he was always on the lookout for research material. The plans for this battle station, upon which the war-in-progress might well hinge, certainly seemed worthy of a place in that research. He’d have to write the account under a pseudonym, of course. No matter which side won, they would want to have words with the author of such a tome, which would hold both sides up to a bright light that would flatter neither. Likely the information would be suppressed, but that didn’t matter. There would always be copies of it floating around, and beings who wished to know its contents. Knowledge was like that - once it was ushered into the light, putting it back into the shadows was difficult, if not impossible.”
― Michael Reaves, Star Wars: Death Star

“He hated whining. Especially if it issued from his own lips.”
― Michael Reaves, The Last Jedi

“called?—who’d been self-aware enough to play sabacc and gloat over the winnings. It had had a sarcastic circuit a klick wide. Uli”
― Michael Reaves, Death Star: Star Wars Legends

“To surrender to callousness or despair in the face of such sorrow was to be revealed as its accomplice.”
― Michael Reaves, Shadows Over Baker Street

“I think this galaxy would be a whole lot nicer and more pleasant place to live if we all just stop killing one another. Who's with me on this?"
A few chuckles and a couple of faux cheers were the response.
"You're a visionary," I-Five told him.
"Float it past Palpatine, see what he thinks," Uli suggested.”
― Michael Reaves, Star Wars: Medstar II - Jedi Healer

“Minimize expectations to avoid being disappointed.”
― Michael Reaves, Star Wars: Medstar II - Jedi Healer

“Den Dhur stared out through the viewport and considered whether the relief from boredom offered by challenging Thi Xon Yimmon to a game of dejarik was worth the extreme humiliation that would inevitably follow.”
― Michael Reaves, The Last Jedi

“As it sometimes happened, the good suffered for the faults of the bad.”
― Michael Reaves, Star Wars: Death Star

“Even the humblest of beings contains within himself a universe of infinite diversity and wonder. Therefore, when you give aid and comfort to just one being, you are, for that moment, the deity of an entire cosmos.”
― Michael Reaves, Coruscant Nights

“What do you think, Kaarz?”
Standing next to him in the recently pressurized but still-cold office annex, Teela knew she was once again being tested. Every time she was around the Old Man, he did that. She’d heard that it took awhile for him to trust you - but once he did you were golden in his eyes. It seemed that everybody worth the salt in their bodies who worked for him wanted him to feel that way.
And why shouldn’t they? A missive of recommendation from Stinex, even just a line or two, was worth just about any conceivable torture one could imagine and endure. It was a ticket for the hyperlane that could lead to wealth, fame, and the most desirable thing of all: Freedom.
The freedom to design what one wished, to give free rein to one’s artistic expression, to create something that might truly outlast the ages, that might -
Teela realized that the Old Man was waiting patiently for an answer to his question.”
― Michael Reaves, Star Wars: Death Star

“We can never know everything,” Holmes said, “but I fear that everything knows us.”
― Michael Reaves, Shadows Over Baker Street

“haecceity”
― Michael Reaves, The Silver Dream