Matthew Woodring Stover > Quotes

“The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins – but in the heart of its strength lies its weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back.
Love is more than a candle.
Love can ignite the stars.”
― Matthew Stover, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

“ The dark is generous.
Its first gift is concealment: our true faces lie in the dark beneath our skins, our true hearts remain shadowed deeper still. But the greatest concealment lies not in protecting our secret truths, but in hiding from the truths of others.
The dark protects us from what we dare not know.
Its second gift is comforting illusion: the ease of gentle dreams in night’s embrace, the beauty that imagination brings to what would repel in the day’s harsh light. But the greatest of its comforts is the illusion that dark is temporary: that every night brings a new day. Because it’s the day that is temporary.
Day is the illusion.
Its third gift is the light itself: as days are defined by the nights that divide them, as stars are defined by the infinite black through which they wheel, the dark embraces the light, and brings it forth from the center of its own self.
With each victory of the light, it is the dark that wins.


The dark is generous, and it is patient.
It is the dark that seeds cruelty into justice, that drips contempt into compassion, that poisons love with grains of doubt.
The dark can be patient, because the slightest drop of rain will cause those seeds to sprout.
The rain will come, and the seeds will sprout, for the dark is the soil in which they grow, and it is the clouds above them, and it waits behind the star that gives them light.
The dark’s patience is infinite.
Eventually, even stars burn out.


The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins.
It always wins because it is everywhere.
It is in the wood that burns in your hearth, and in the kettle on the fire; it is under your chair and under your table and under the sheets on your bed. Walk in the midday sun, and the dark is with you, attached to the soles of your feet.
The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.


The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins – but in the heart of its strength lies its weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back.
Love is more than a candle.
Love can ignite the stars.”
― Matthew Stover

“A pair of starfighters. Jedi starfighters. Only two.
Two is enough.
Two is enough because the adults are wrong, and their younglings are right.
Though this is the end of the age of heroes, it has saved its best for last.”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

“It's not always easy to distinguish between existentialism and a bad mood.”
― Matthew Stover, Blade of Tyshalle

“And you rage and scream and reach through the Force to crush the shadow who has destroyed you, but you are so far less now than what you were, you are more than half machine, you are like a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf, you can remember where the power was but the power you can touch is only a memory, and so with all your world-destroying fury it is only droids around you that implode, and equipment, and the table on which you were strapped shatters, and in the end, you cannot touch the shadow. In the end you don't even want to. In the end, you do not even want to. In the end, the shadow is all you have left. Because the shadow understands you, the shadow forgives you, the shadow gathers you unto itself—And within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame.”
― Matthew Stover, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

“This is Obi-Wan Kenobi:
A phenomenal pilot who doesn’t like to fly. A devastating warrior who’d rather not fight. A negotiator without peer who frankly prefers to sit alone in a quiet cave and meditate.”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

“The dark is generous, and it is patient. It is the dark that seeds cruelty into justice, that drips contempt into compassion, that poisons love with grains of doubt. The dark can be patient, because the slightest drop of rain will cause those seeds to sprout. The rain will come, and the seeds will sprout, for the dark is the soil in which they grow, and it is the clouds above them, and it waits behind the star that gives them light. The dark’s patience is infinite. Eventually, even stars burn out.”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

“Anakin.” Obi-Wan’s voice had gone soft, and his hand was warm on Anakin’s arm. “There is no other Jedi I would rather have at my side right now. No other man.”

Anakin turned, and found within Obi-Wan’s eyes a depth of feeling he had only rarely glimpsed in all their years together; and the pure uncomplicated love that rose up within him then felt like a promise from the Force itself.

“I… I wouldn’t have it any other way, Master.”

“I believe,” his onetime Master said with a gently humorous look of astonishment at the words coming out of his mouth, “that you should get used to calling me Obi-Wan.”
― Matthew Stover, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

“This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker, forever:
The first dawn of light in your universe brings pain.
The light burns you. It will always burn you. Part of you will always lie upon black glass sand beside a lake of fire while flames chew upon your flesh.
You can hear yourself breathing. It comes hard, and harsh, and it scrapes nerves already raw, but you cannot stop it. You can never stop it. You cannot even slow it down.
You don’t even have lungs anymore. Mechanisms hardwired into your chest breathe for you. They will pump oxygen into your bloodstream forever.
Lord Vader? Lord Vader, can you hear me?”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Star Wars, Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

“This was not Sith against Jedi. This was not light against dark or good against evil; it had nothing to do with duty or philosophy, religion or morals.
It was Anakin against Obi-Wan.
Personally.
Just the two of them and the damage they had done to each other”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Star Wars, Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

“If you take out the team in teamwork, it's just work. Now who wants that?”
― Matthew Woodring Stover

“The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins.
It always wins because it is everywhere.
It is in the wood that burns in your hearth, and in the kettle on the fire; it is under your chair and under your table and under the sheets on your bed. Walk in the midday sun, and the dark is with you, attached to the soles of your feet.
The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.”
― Matthew Stover

“The dark is generous. Its first gift is concealment: our true faces lie in the dark beneath our skins, our true hearts remain shadowed deeper still. But the greatest concealment lies not in protecting our secret truths, but in hiding from us the truths of others. The dark protects us from what we dare not know.”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

“Jedi do not fight for peace. That's only a slogan, and is as misleading as slogans always are. Jedi fight for civilization, because only civilization creates peace. We fight for justice because justice is the fundamental bedrock of civilization: an unjust civilization is built upon sand. It does not long survive a storm.”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Star Wars: Shatterpoint

“A lie is like a pet- you have to take care of it, or it'll turn on you and bite you in the ass.”
― Matthew Stover, Heroes Die

“In the end, you cannot touch the shadow.
In the end, you do not even want to.
In the end, the shadow is all you have left.
Because the shadow understands you, the shadow forgives you, the shadow gathers you unto itself -
And within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame.
This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker.
Forever...”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Star Wars, Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

“This story happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It is already over. Nothing can be done to change it. It is a story of love and loss, brotherhood and betrayal, courage and sacrifice and the death of dreams. It is a story of the blurred line between our best and our worst. It is the story of the end of an age. A strange thing about stories— Though this all happened so long ago and so far away that words cannot describe the time or the distance, it is also happening right now. Right here. It is happening as you read these words. This is how twenty-five millennia come to a close. Corruption and treachery have crushed a thousand years of peace. This is not just the end of a republic; night is falling on civilization itself. This is the twilight of the Jedi. The end starts now.”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

“So this is how liberty dies," she was saying to herself. "With cheering, and applause.”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

“I think," Obi-Wan said carefully, "that abstractions like peace don't mean much to him. He's loyal to people, not to principles. And he expects loyalty in return. He will stop at nothing to save me, for example, because he thinks I would do the same for him."
Mace and Yoda gazed at him steadily, and Obi-Wan had to lower his head.
"Because," he admitted reluctantly, "he knows I would do the same for him.”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

“Contemplation of death brought only one slight sting of regret, and more than a bit of puzzlement. Until this very moment, he had never realized he’d always expected, for no discernible reason— That when he died, Anakin would be with him.”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

“Life is more a matter of choosing than knowing. He could never know the eventual destination of his path, but he could always choose in which direction to take each step.”
― Matthew Stover, Traitor

“I am called a great swordsman because I invented a lethal style; but who is greater, the creator of a killing form—or the master of the classic form?"

"I'm very flattered that you would consider me a master but really—"

"Not a master. The master.”
― Matthew Stover, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

“This is Anakin Skywalker: The most powerful Jedi of his generation. Perhaps of any generation. The fastest. The strongest. An unbeatable pilot. An unstoppable warrior. On the ground, in the air or sea or space, there is no one even close. He has not just power, not just skill, but dash: that rare, invaluable combination of boldness and grace.”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

“And he knew that to strike Anakin down would burn his own heart to ash”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Star Wars, Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

“This story happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It is already over. Nothing can be done to change it.
It is a story of love and loss, brotherhood and betrayal, courage and sacrifice and the death of dreams. It is a story of the blurred line between our best and our worst.
It is the story of the end of an age.
A strange thing about stories—
Though this all happened so long ago and so far away that words cannot describe the time or the distance, it is also happening right now. Right here.
It is happening as you read these words.
This is how twenty-five millennia come to a close. Corruption and treachery have crushed a thousand years of peace. This is not just the end of a republic; night is falling on civilization itself.
This is the twilight of the Jedi.
The end starts now.”
― Matthew Stover, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

“This truth: that he, the avatar of light, Supreme Master of the Jedi Order, the fiercest, most impeccable, most devastatingly powerful foe the darkness had ever known...

just-

didn't-

have it.”
― Matthew Stover, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

“But even in the deepest night, there are some who dream of dawn”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Star Wars, Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

“And Anakin is on his way despite the dread boiling through his blood. That’s what makes him a real hero. Not the way the HoloNet labels him; not without fear, but stronger than fear.

He looks the dragon in the eye and doesn’t even slow down.”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

“The truth is always greater than the words we use to describe it.”
― Matthew Stover

“They are closer than friends. Closer than brothers. Though Obi-Wan is sixteen standard years Anakin's elder, they have become men together. Neither can imagine life without the other. The war has forged their two lives into one.”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith