Michael Stackpole Quotes & Sayings

I sell a lot of ebooks from my website and encourage authors to set up their own stores. — Michael A. Stackpole

People downloading my stories from the bit torrent sites were never going to buy them anyway. It's no money out of my pocket. — Michael A. Stackpole

Paying a royalty to someone for prepping an ebook is akin to paying the kid who cuts your grass a percentage of the purchase price when you sell your house. It makes no sense. — Michael A. Stackpole

The real important thing about Digital-Original publication goes beyond the fact that authors make more money off each sale than through traditional publishing. It's that we get to bypass a system of gatekeepers who have more than 'quality' as criteria for what they choose. — Michael A. Stackpole

Higher ebook prices don't benefit me, booksellers or readers, and that means something is really wrong. — Michael A. Stackpole

Publishing can be tough. It has the ability to kill dreams. — Michael A. Stackpole

Do you want help?"
"No."
"Do you need help? — Michael A. Stackpole

This is the purpose of life, is it not? To create life is the greatest act a living creature can commit. — Michael A. Stackpole

I have nothing against kids - as long as they go home with their parents at the end of the day. — Michael A. Stackpole

I am so glad I found you and didn't kill you - Mara Jade Skywalker to Luke Skywalker — Michael A. Stackpole

Higher ebook prices only benefit one group: publishers. — Michael A. Stackpole

You saw this as a travesty because, by marrying Mara, I was taking an important icon from you. But this is about starting a new life, not ending an old one. — Michael A. Stackpole

Life is not without pain, but life concerns itself with how we handle that pain, or joy, or confusion or triumph. Life is more than time passing before death, it is the sum and total of all we make of it. — Michael A. Stackpole

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

There is no denying the aesthetics of a well-made, well-loved book. — Michael A. Stackpole

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

Cars did not kill off horses. Digital publishing will not kill off books. — Michael A. Stackpole

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

Luke, I'm a fighter. I've always been a fighter. The few times when I have been at leisure, I've been miserable. I want challenges, I crave them. As nice an peaceful as it was up north here, it lulled me, dulled me, took the edge off. Anakin made it so I had no needs, and Dantooine -- before the Yuuzhan Vong -- had nothing more dangerous than big thorns to worry about. I was wasting away, trying to conserve my strengh, all the while turning away from the means I'd used in the past to tap the Force."
- Mara Jade Skywalker — Michael A. Stackpole

Your intentions will be good. Without consideration and forethought, however, your actions could still be evil. That is the problem, of course, evil is always easy and resisting it is never so. Evil is relentless; and anyone, if they tire, if they are not vigilant, can fall prey to it. — Michael A. Stackpole

Because finding the differences upon which we can hang hatred is much easier than discovering the common ground that can unite. — Michael A. Stackpole

If someone is going to profit from your work, they need to earn it. — Michael A. Stackpole

I don't know what I'll be in the future, Anakin, but I know you'll be a great Jedi Knight."
- Jacen Solo — Michael A. Stackpole

selflessness is the only antidote to evil. It provides the light that destroys the dark. — Michael A. Stackpole

The sun shined and winked through wind-rustled leaves to paint the roadway with an ever-shifting mosaic of light and shadows. — Stackpole, Michael A.

Can I truly discover how to integrate myself in the Force if I do not know who I am without it?"
- Jacen Solo — Michael A. Stackpole

This is not for me a memory. It is a portrait of now. Of a state of being of the world.' He slowly bowed his head. 'And of freedom, for change. It portends coming change. Crushing of enemies, perhaps; a coming winter, most like. But as you will never brew exactly this brew again, so the world will never again know this time or, alas, this peace. — Michael A. Stackpole

Being Jedi is what we are. It's not the power we weild or the weapons we carry."
-Luke Skywalker — Michael A. Stackpole

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

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. — Michael A. Stackpole

Few and far between are the books you'll cherish, returning to them time and again, to revisit old friends, relive old happiness, and recapture the magic of that first read. — Michael A. Stackpole

A gram of prevention is worth a kilo of cure."
-Ganner Rhysode — Michael A. Stackpole

In games, we know who has won ... You get the reinforcement for having played well. — Michael A. Stackpole

I certainly knew of 'World of Warcraft'; I had never actually played because I knew that if I started playing, I would never get any work done - because it would just totally absorb me. — Michael A. Stackpole

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

What we must do now is create ourselves - not re-create, but create. This is why it is cruel. When we first did this, we had all the energy of youth. We did not know that attaining our dreams would be impossible - we just went out and got them. Innocence shielded us. Enthusiasm and unflagging confidence got us through. But now we have none of that. Now we are old, wiser, tired. — Michael A. Stackpole

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 — Michael A. Stackpole

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. — Michael A. Stackpole

The nice thing about being an adolescent is being able to make mature decisions when you need them and being able to just flow alone with life when you don't. — Michael A. Stackpole

The distinction between protectors and warriors is critical to avoid the seduction of the Dark Side."
-Luke Skywalker — Michael A. Stackpole

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. — Michael A. Stackpole

Easy isn't for Jedi. Of course, trying to find your own path is much more difficult. Maybe what you have to do is walk a bit on the other paths and see how you can waeve bits and pieces of them together."
- Anakin Solo — Michael A. Stackpole

Life itself was hard enough without monosynaptic sociopaths preying on folks. — Michael A. Stackpole

On Dantooine, when Mara made me stop using the Force like a crutch, I had a
lot of time to think about things. I realized I was using the force too much.
Uncle Luke uses it like an advisor, or sometimes a power source. Others use it
like a vibroblade, some like an opinion poll, and others yet like a whole
variety of tools. I thought all about that, and I guess I chose to follow in
Uncle Luke's footsteps."
-Anakin — Michael A. Stackpole

Choosing to publish work electronically myself is really a no-brainer. — Michael A. Stackpole

Corran: "I thought Commander Antilles was in that TIE. I mean it had to be someone as good as him to get you three"
Nawara: "Apparently he is that good"
Rhysati: "He flew circles around me"
Ooryl: "At least you saw him. He caught Ooryl as Ooryl fixed on his wingman. Ooryl is free hydrogen in simspace. That man is very good."
Corran: "Sure, but who is he?"
Rhysati: "What difference does it make who he is?"
Corran: "Rhys, he shot up three of our best pilots, had me dead in space, and he says he's a bit RUSTY! — Michael A. Stackpole

A Two-Onebee droid doesn't need to contract a disease to diagnose and treat it. — Michael A. Stackpole

If the quest was supposed to be easy, they would not have given it to someone who is supposed to be a hero. --A Hero Born, pg 344 — Michael A. Stackpole

As long as I'm fighting, I'm not dying. - Mara Jade Skywalker — Michael A. Stackpole

I know. Off to save the galaxy again, that's my Leia."
- Han Solo — Michael A. Stackpole

If your job all day is disallowing insurance claims, you can still spend an evening playing games with your friends, and you can be faced with threats and puzzles that are far more exciting than anything you've ever imagined facing at work. — Michael A. Stackpole

Out of the firefight, into the carbon freeze. -Anakin Solo — Michael A. Stackpole

Digital-Original just shifts the R&D costs for publishing to the authors and affords us the chance to write the stories we want to write and the stories our patrons want to read. — Michael A. Stackpole

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. — Michael A. Stackpole

Prior to 2009, when publishers scoffed at the ebook market, they offered writers contracts which gave us half of the money they made off ebook sales. — Michael A. Stackpole

Reason why scars form is to show that man can survive his own stupidity" Anastasius Focht talking to Phelan Kell on the Dire Wolf — Michael A. Stackpole

Digital-Original publishing embraces the non-conventional and genre-busting story. It allows me to share good stories with readers who will enjoy them, and at a reasonable price. — Michael A. Stackpole

Authors will make far more on those ebooks through direct sales than publishers are offering. There is no incentive for authors to sell those rights to traditional publishers which means, in the fairly short term, publishers run out of material to sell. — Michael A. Stackpole

In reality, a person questioning the existence of the Satanic conspiracy is merely pointing out that the emperor is wearing no clothes. In that case, one can understand why the emperor's tailors get upset and suggest the person doing the pointing is a tool of the devil. Then the question comes down to one of whether the crowd will believe the evidence they have before them, or if they will buy into the tailors' fantasies. — Michael A. Stackpole

Out of character to be so obvious. You need to be more subtle. Locate a partially blocked artery in his brain, then just pinch it off. Bang, he's down and it's over."
- Mara Jade Skywalker — Michael A. Stackpole

It has been aptly noted that web browsers are less Internet navigation tools than they are ebooks with highly diverse content. — Michael A. Stackpole

Let's get started. Who's first?"
"His name is Kettch, and he's an Ewok."
Wedge came upright. "No."
"Oh, yes. Determined to fight. You should hear him say, 'Yub, yub.' He makes it a battle cry."
"Wes, assuming he could be educated up to Alliance fighter-pilot standards, an Ewok couldn't even reach an X-wing's controls."
"He wears arm and leg extensions, prosthetics built for him by a sympathetic medical droid. And he's anxious to go, Commander."
"Please tell me you're kidding."
"Of course I'm kidding."
(...) "I'm going to get you, Janson."
"Yub, yub, Commander. — Michael A. Stackpole

You can't hear a whisper if you're constantly shouting. — Michael A. Stackpole