James Luceno > Quotes

“I never claimed to be the Chosen One. That was Qui-Gon. Even the Council doesn’t believe it anymore, so why should you?”
"Because I think you believe it,” Obi-Wan said calmly.
“I think you know in your heart that you’re meant for something extraordinary.”
“And you, Master. What does your heart tell you you’re meant for?”
“Infinite sadness,” Obi-Wan said, even while smiling.”
― James Luceno, Star Wars: Labyrinth of Evil

“Remember why the Sith are more powerful than the Jedi, Sidious: because we are not afraid to feel. We embrace the spectrum of emotions, from the heights of transcendent joy to the depths of hatred and despair. Fearless, we welcome whatever paths the dark side sets us on, and whatever destiny it lays out for us.”
― James Luceno, Darth Plagueis

“Evil? What is that? ...You said you were death itself. Are you evil, then, or are you simply stronger and more awake than others? Who gives more shape to sentient history: the good, who adhere to the tried and true, or those who seek to rouse beings from their stupor and lead them to glory? A storm you are, but a much needed one, to wash away the old and complacent and prune the galaxy of deadweight."

-Plagueis”
― James Luceno, Darth Plagueis

“Uncertainty is the first step toward self-determination,” Plagueis said. “Courage comes next.”
― James Luceno, Darth Plagueis

“Sometimes it’s more painful to know the truth than not to know it.”
-Han Solo”
― James Luceno, Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial

“The newly created Darth Vader flexes his Force-muscle as the Emperor's enforcer to maintain order and obedience in a galaxy reeling from civil war and the destruction of the Jedi Order. To the galaxy at large, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker - the Chosen One - died on Coruscant during the siege of the Jedi Temple. And, to some extent, the was true - Anakin was dead. But from the site of Anakin Skywalker's last stand - on the molten surface of the planet Mustafa, where he sought to destroy his friend and former master, Obi-Wan Kanobi - a fearsome spectre in black has risen. Once the most powerful Knight ever known to the Jedi order he is not a disciple of the dark side, a lord of the dreaded Sith, and the avenging right hand of the galaxy's ruthless new Emperor. Seduced, deranged and destroyed by the machinations of the Dark Lord Sidious, Anakin Skywalker is dead ... and Darth Vader lives ...”
― James Luceno

“Tarkin smiled. “Someone once said that politics is little more than the systematic organization of hostilities.”
― James Luceno, Tarkin

“Rarely did events play out as imagined, in any case. The order of future events was transient. In the same way that the past was reconfigured by selective memory, future events, too, were moving targets. One could only act on instinct, grab hold of an intuited perfect moment, and spring into action.”
― James Luceno, Darth Plagueis

“Deception begins with bureaucracy,” Palpatine said.”
― James Luceno, Darth Plagueis

“It’s funny the way things work out. You go in search of one thing and end up finding something else. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was the Force at work.”
-Han Solo”
― James Luceno, Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial

“If actions were always judged by their consequence, we’d spend half our lives making amends.”
-Luke Skywalker”
― James Luceno, Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse

“Where the Jedi courted power, the Sith lusted after it; where the Jedi believed they knew the truth, the Sith possessed it. Owned by the dark side, they ultimately became their knowledge.”
― James Luceno, Darth Plagueis

“To say that the Force works in mysterious ways is to admit one’s ignorance, for any mystery can be solved through the application of knowledge and unrelenting effort.”
― James Luceno, Darth Plagueis

“Moff Tarkin sends his regards.”
― James Luceno, Tarkin

“The power of the dark side is an illness no true Sith would wish to be cured of.”
― James Luceno, Darth Plagueis

“Propelled by fear or hatred, even a Jedi can pass beyond the constraints of the Order’s teachings and discover power of a more profound sort. But no Jedi who arrives at that place, who has risen above his or her allegiance to peace and justice, who kills in anger or out of desire, can lay real claim to the dark side of the Force. Their attempts to convince themselves that they fell to the dark side, or that the dark side compelled their actions, are nothing more than pitiful rationalizations. That is why the Sith embrace the dark from the start, focusing on the acquistion of power. We make no excuses. The actions of a Sith begin from the self and flow outward. We stalk the Force like hunters, rather than surrender like prey to its enigmatic whims.”
― James Luceno, Darth Plagueis

“A Jedi sufficiently strong in the Force can be trained to produce a facsimile, but not true Sith lightning, which, unabated, has the power not only to incapacitate or kill, but to physically transform the victim. Force lightning requires strength of a sort only a Sith can command because we accept consequence and reject compassion. To do so requires a thirst for power that is not easily satisfied. The Force tries to resist the callings of ravenous spirits; therefore it must be broken and made a beast of burden. It must be made to answer to one’s will.”
― James Luceno, Darth Plagueis

“There is no one truth.”
― James Luceno, Star Wars: Catalyst - A Rogue One Novel

“The Force tries to resist the callings of ravenous spirits; therefore it must be broken and made a beast of burden. It must be made to answer to one’s will.”
― James Luceno, Darth Plagueis

“Even friends can't be protected from fate, Han."
-Droma”
― James Luceno, Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse

“Never try to live decently, boy—not unless you’re willing to open your life to tragedy and sadness. Live like a beast, and no event, no matter how harrowing, will ever be able to move you.”
― James Luceno, Tarkin

“The Jedi were certainly aware of the tremendous potential, but they restrained themselves.”
“Precisely what they did with the Force, as some have said. If they had made use of their full powers, the war would have ended in a heartbeat. And the galaxy would be in a different state entirely. For all their purported objectivity, they weren’t scientists, they were mystics. For a thousand generations that sufficed. Notions of right and wrong can no longer be dictated by a select group to safeguard some personal vision of the truth.”
― James Luceno, Star Wars: Catalyst - A Rogue One Novel

“Beings may elect their leaders, but the Force has elected us.”
― James Luceno, Darth Plagueis

“For all that sentients have achieved with weapons and machines, life remains an ongoing battle for survival, with the strong or the smart at the top of the heap, and the rest kept in check by firepower and laws.”
― James Luceno, Tarkin

“But Ashla is a perversion,” he went on, “for the dark has always preceded the light. The original idea was to capture the power of the Force and make it subservient to the will of sentient life. The ancients—the Celestials, the Rakata—didn’t pronounce judgment on their works. They moved planets, organized star systems, conjured dark side devices like the Star Forge as they saw fit. If millions died in the process, so be it. The lives of most beings are of small consequence. The Jedi have failed to understand this. They are so busy saving lives and striving to keep the powers of the Force in balance that they have lost sight of the fact that sentient life is meant to evolve, not simply languish in contented stasis.”
― James Luceno, Darth Plagueis

““Mathematics isn’t just science, it is poetry—our efforts to crystallize the unglimpsed connections between things. Poetry that bridges and magnifies the mysteries of the galaxy. But the signs and symbols and equations sentients employ to express these connections are not discoveries but the teasing out of secrets that have always existed. All our theories belong to nature, not to us. As in music, every combination of notes and chords, every melody has already been played and sung, somewhere, by someone—””
― James Luceno, Star Wars: Catalyst - A Rogue One Novel

“Do you see the grand error of their ways? They execute the Republic’s business as if it were the business of the Force! But has a political body ever succeeded in being the arbiter of what is right and just?”
― James Luceno, Darth Plagueis

“We Sith are an unseen opposition, Tenebrous had told his young apprentice. A phantom menace. Where the Sith once wore armor, we now wear cloaks. But the Force works through us all the more powerfully in our invisibility. For the present, the more covert we remain, the more influence we can have. Our revenge will be achieved not through subjugation but by contagion.”
― James Luceno, Star Wars: Darth Plagueis

“To be strong in the Force is one thing. But to believe oneself to be all-powerful is to invite catastrophe. Remember, that even in the ethereal realm we inhabit, the unforeseen can occur.”
― James Luceno, Darth Plagueis

“Triumphing over nature means better lives for sentients, but dominance is sustained only by bringing order to chaos and establishing law where none exists.”
― James Luceno, Tarkin