Quotes from Michael A. Stackpole

The most elegant speeches may sway the hearts and minds of men, but not one ever stopped a bullet.

The day after we returned from Iorn Fist I woke up and I want either one of them anymore. Somewhere in between a girl I thought was long dead and a woman that was too blood thirsty for me to particularly like. But I thought about all that had happened the day before and decided that I liked being alive. So I wanted to than you for not letting me die.

I shall remind myself who I am so I can share that with them, instead of trying to explain why I am not who they think I should be. (Yalia Sagewhisper)

People assume that if they say nothing and do nothing they're not involved in the fight, but the fact is that their apathy is a tacit vote of support for the status quo.

As long as the patient lives, Marshal, we've done what we need to do.

A crab that sees itself as a crab be defined not by the shelter it seeks but by its very need to seek shelter. I be not a crab. My future be not depending on what I can find to act as a shell. I have many more choices. (Vol'jin Darkspear)

You have your traditions, and are welcome to them. They have shaped the world I've inherited but, by all that is holy, they will not determine the world I pass on to the next generation. And insuring the future is yet one more reason to fight, and one I gladly embrace.

Janson gave an eloquent shrug. "Myn, I'm living on borrowed time. I've nearly been killed more times than, than, well, more times than you've been slapped, certainly. If I wait until some imaginary distant point in my life to start enjoying it, I'll be dead before I get there. But if I get killed tomorrow, at least I can be pretty sure that I enjoyed myself more than whoever's killing me. You understand?

Even the foulest victim of the Darkside can be redeemed - Luke Skywalker

The advent of ebooks is no more going to kill the pleasure of reading than the introduction of the internal combustion engine made horses extinct.

A lot of stuff people do these days is not mentally challenging.

I've done a lot of books with Asian antecedents to them - some of my fantasy novels have been that way, and certainly in the 'Battletech' universe, there's a lot of Asian culture in that.

Authors can easily produce ebook versions of novels and shorter work which publishers don't own.

We all are faced by problems of 'How am I going to get the rent?' or 'Am I going to have this job six months from now?' It's very difficult to define in your life a victory.

Life itself was hard enough without monosynaptic sociopaths preying on folks.

I am so glad I found you and didn't kill you" - Mara Jade Skywalker to Luke Skywalker

As long as I'm fighting, I'm not dying." - Mara Jade Skywalker

Even being a Jedi is something where you look for more. At first you acted as if Jedi was synonymous with hero. It isn't. Being a hero isn't what all these folks are here to do. They're here to do their jobs." -Jaina Solo

If the wind no longer calls to you, it is time to see if you have forgotten your name.

If you can't recognize the man in the mirror, it is time to step back and see when you stopped being yourself.

Out of the firefight, into the carbon freeze." -Anakin Solo

As Han once told me, "Stealth and subtlety work well, but for making lasting impressions, a blaster does just fine.

Do you want help?" "No." "Do you need help?

Note to the wise: whenever someone insists that he wants to buy something from you, but tells you there's no real value in it yet, two things are happening: he's lying, and you're being taken.