Chuck Wendig Quotes

Gotta have a head like a wrecking ball, a spirit like one of them punching clown dummies that always weeble-wobbles back up to standing. This takes time. Stories need to find the right home, the right audience. Stick with it. Quitting is for sad pandas. ~ Chuck Wendig

(As are all living things. All are caught in the river of power that is the Force, trapped by its currents. Only those who wield the dark side of the Force are capable of changing those currents; they are riverbreakers. They do not surrender to fate. They are its foes.) The ~ Chuck Wendig

The beginning's easy because it's like
BOOM, some shit just happened. The ending's easy because
POW, all the shit that happened just lead to this. ~ Chuck Wendig

You fool," she says. "You eager, egotistical fool. Grand Moff. Pfah. You have so much, so wrong. The Ravager is not the last weapon. Nor do I even control it. There is ... another." His face twitches. "You don't mean ... " "I do mean. He's not dead." "But you said he was." "I lied." She shrugs. "This was ... all his plan. Wasn't it? I should've seen it. I fell for a trap. We all fell for your trap. You betrayer. You foul, wretched betrayer. ~ Chuck Wendig

Plot is like Soylent Green: it's made of people. ~ Chuck Wendig

That's a lesson we could stand to learn. Imperials are just like us. Some of them, at least. It's easy to label those who serve the Galactic Empire as pure evil, all enemy, but truth is, a lot of those who do so were either sold a bill of lies, or forced to by threat of pain or death. ~ Chuck Wendig

The Empire pretends it's about law and order, but at the end of the day, it's about dressing up oppression in the costume of justice. The ~ Chuck Wendig

I love you in the future tense: I will love you, tomorrow and the day after and the day after that until there are no more days left for us. ~ Chuck Wendig

All hail the light, the dark, and the grey. ~ Chuck Wendig

A HUG IS LIKE VIOLENCE MADE OF LOVE. ~ Chuck Wendig

Stormtroopers were literally supposed to be within the same range of height and weight in part because of exactly that - he wasn't joking when he said he was too tall to be a stormtrooper. ~ Chuck Wendig

For it is time to return home. It is time to return democracy to the galaxy. ~ Chuck Wendig

Mon wants this transition to be as peaceable as possible. That is, of course, a noble goal. And in late nights the chancellor confided in Leia that she is wisely struck by the fear of what happened the first time the parasite of Palpatine squirmed under the skin. How easy it was for him to prey on the anxieties of the galaxy. How simple it was for him to turn system against system by stoking the fires of xenophobia, anger, selfishness. (And here Luke's voice echoes in her mind: The ways and tools of the dark side, Leia.) How do you form an Empire? By stealing a Republic. And how do you steal a Republic? By convincing its people that they cannot govern themselves - that freedom is their enemy and that fear is their ally. Palpatine ~ Chuck Wendig

With the blood of a scoundrel and a princess in his veins, his defiance will shake the stars. ~ Chuck Wendig

You can't be friends with a droid. ~ Chuck Wendig

Sometimes it's just a zen thing and it means shutting the noise out and forming a plan and realizing that as long as it's not going to kill you then you just need to breathe and move past it, ~ Chuck Wendig

Somehow, the remaining factions of the Empire are still fueling their war effort even months after the destruction of their second battle station. ~ Chuck Wendig

I smuggle, not snuggle. ~ Chuck Wendig

Life is equal parts strange and beautiful and horrible, and we're tossed into it without a map or an instruction guide. Poems and stories have a way of helping us make sense of things. ~ Chuck Wendig

Democracy is not in need of defense. People are. ~ Chuck Wendig

You grab the core essence of a true problem and swaddle it in the mad glittery ribbons of fantasy - and therein you find glorious new permutations of conflict. Reality expressed in mind-boggling ways. Reach for fantasy. Find the reality. ~ Chuck Wendig

This isn't some kind of inspirational story. Some scrappy, ragtag underdog tale, some pugilistic match where we're the goodhearted gladiator who brings down the oppressive regime that put him in the arena. They get to have that narrative. We are the ones who enslaved whole worlds full of alien inhabitants. We are the ones who built something called a Death Star under the leadership of a decrepit old goblin who believed in the 'dark side' of some ancient, insane religion. ~ Chuck Wendig

Buying gifts for a kid. Can we get him a cute little cape and a mustache so he looks like old Uncle Lando?" Lobot ~ Chuck Wendig

Writing is the act of creation. Put words on a page, words to sentences, sentences to paragraphs, paragraphs to seven-book epic fantasy cycles with books so heavy you could choke a hippo. But don't give writing too much power, either. A wizard controls his magic; it doesn't control him. ~ Chuck Wendig

Things happen in this life. Sometimes they're good things, and sometimes they're bad things. You have to come to terms with the bad things, especially when you can't change them. ~ Chuck Wendig

People are weird, Atlanta thinks. Everybody's someone different than you suspect. ~ Chuck Wendig

The Empire was not known for its roomy architecture. It was fond of austere pragmatism (that term, austere pragmatism, or sometimes pragmatic austerity, found its way atop many Imperial brochures and propaganda tracts), and so kept its hallways low and narrow. ~ Chuck Wendig

I want soldiers who hate what they had to do and fear having to ever do it again." "And if that means we lose the war?" "Then we lose the war by keeping ourselves." That ~ Chuck Wendig

The desire for perfection is like a pit of wet coal silt: it will grab your boots like iron hands and never let you go. 13. ~ Chuck Wendig

Good story thrives on protagonists in pain. ~ Chuck Wendig

The Empire needed no new weapons. It built the greatest weapon in the history of the galaxy. Twice. It did not need new battle stations. It needed new leadership. ~ Chuck Wendig

Be patient. Be strong. Fight back where you can. The Imperial war machine falls apart one gear, one gun, one stormtrooper at a time. The New Republic is coming. And we want your help to finish the fight. ~ Chuck Wendig

Use the words that live inside your head. And if the words that live inside your head are those of a sentimental Victorian troubadour, then please close your head in a door jamb until you kill all that overwrought prose in an act of brain damage. ~ Chuck Wendig

The Ravager is not the last weapon. Nor do I even control it. There is ... another." His face twitches. "You don't mean ... " "I do mean. He's not dead." "But you said he was." "I lied." She shrugs. "This was ... all his plan. Wasn't it? I should've seen it. I fell for a trap. We all fell for your trap. ~ Chuck Wendig

This is democracy," she says. "It is strange. And it is messy. It's not about getting it right. It's about trying to get it right. Yes, it's a bit chaotic. Certainly we will get some things wrong. ~ Chuck Wendig

Don't judge me, Captain Judgeypants. I go there for the sandwiches.) ~ Chuck Wendig

A good life lesson is not to take strange meat from strange people. "You're ~ Chuck Wendig

A storyteller makes us feel something. Makes us give a shit when we have no good reason to do so. Fun is not the last stop on the story train. The storyteller is master manipulator. The storyteller is cackling puppetmaster. ~ Chuck Wendig

The SUV carves its way through dark pine forests. Morning sun passes through the pleached trees, dappling the windows of the vehicle. ~ Chuck Wendig

Rejection has value. It teaches us when our work or our skillset is not good enough and must be made better. This is a powerful revelation, like the burning UFO wheel seen by the prophet Ezekiel, or like the McRib sandwich shaped like the Virgin Mary seen by the prophet Steve Jenkins. Rejection refines us. Those who fall prey to its enervating soul-sucking tentacles are doomed. Those who persist past it are survivors. Best ask yourself the question: what kind of writer are you? The kind who survives? Or the kind who gets asphyxiated by the tentacles of woe? ~ Chuck Wendig

Every story's trying to say something. It's trying to beam an idea, a message, into the minds of the readers. In this way, every story is an argument. It's the writer making a case. ~ Chuck Wendig

Even a small group of people can change the galaxy. ~ Chuck Wendig

Coffee Fuck you, coffee IS TOO a virtue. Do not deny me this. Do not dare! ~ Chuck Wendig

You're a raptor who sees all his people as defenseless little flit-wrens - and you'll save them, if only they give up the fanciful notion that they can lead themselves, that they can protect themselves."
"You understand nothing."
"Meanwhile," Sinjir says, really leaning into it now, "your opponent is a woman who wants to give democracy to the entirety of the galaxy. Freedom for all. Oppression for none."
"It's naïve."
"It may be. But at this point, I'm going to side with her precious naïveté over your authoritarian bluster. ~ Chuck Wendig

It's probably the only attraction in Shartlesburg, Pennsylvania, a town whose name Miriam finds so funny she, well, nearly sharts every time she hears it. ~ Chuck Wendig

Story should be a descent
the feeling that there is an intense gravity to the narrative that draws you down, down, down. ~ Chuck Wendig

Way she sees it, people fall into one of two categories: those who think their death is imminent, and those who figure they have long, healthy lives ahead of them. Nobody ever thinks it's somewhere in-between. ~ Chuck Wendig

The future is suddenly unpinned - evolving, spinning, leaping about like a panicked tree-loormor. ~ Chuck Wendig

The second Death Star is destroyed. The Emperor and his powerful enforcer, Darth Vader, are rumored to be dead. The Galactic Empire is in chaos. Across the galaxy, some systems celebrate, while in others Imperial factions tighten their grip. Optimism and fear reign side by side. And while the Rebel Alliance engages the fractured forces of the Empire, a lone rebel scout uncovers a secret Imperial meeting ... . ~ Chuck Wendig

Thank you for your opinion, but please note that I did not request it. When and if I desire your advice, I will ask you for it directly. Until then? I'm good to go." Then, if they keep on keeping on: "You have now entered an Asshole-Free Zone. You are puncturing my Shut The Fuck Up bubble and violating my personal airspace. As such, you are diminishing my tolerance for people who don't know when to keep their noses on their faces instead of up other people's asses. If you continue down this path, I will be forced to Taser you in the nipples. Each nipple. In turn. One after the other. Bzzt, and then bzzt. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go continue creating awesome shit while you sit here dreaming about tearing awesome shit down. Please enjoy a pair of rigidly up-thrust middle fingers as I walk away unflinchingly, like an action star slow-mo walking from an exploding building, except instead of a burning building, I'm walking away from a flaming pile of human excrement. Boom. ~ Chuck Wendig

What...what are you?" she asked.
"I'm Batman. ~ Chuck Wendig

Jas once heard the story that the Jedi constructed their own lightsabers and she figured, well, why can't she do the same with her rifle? So she did. Because she can do whatever she wants. ~ Chuck Wendig

It is our job to ruin the perfection of the empty page. It is our job to disrupt the status quo: because that's what storytelling us. Taking a straight line and bending it, breaking it, shaping it into something far stranger and far greater. ~ Chuck Wendig

The future is a door. ~ Chuck Wendig

Humility is well and good but facts persevere beyond the shadow of one's own feelings," Ackbar says. "You saved Captain Antilles. You helped us capture two high-value Imperial targets - General Jylia Shale, and Palpatine's adviser Yupe Tashu - and confirm the deaths of two others: Moff Valco Pandion and slaver Arsin Crassus." The way Ackbar says that word slaver - it drips with rage and condescension. ~ Chuck Wendig

Fetches cups of caf. ~ Chuck Wendig

You're brave and smart and kind and I'd be a fool not to trust you. ~ Chuck Wendig

Dengar guffaws. "You little scrap-muncher. I was putting away bounties while you were still in your space diapers." "What's it say about you that you're still in your space diapers? ~ Chuck Wendig

The Empire's weapon may be destroyed, but the Empire itself lives on. ~ Chuck Wendig

Princess Leia's baby, he knows, will have a good life. The best life. ~ Chuck Wendig

You're not tasked with desalinating an ocean or training a komodo dragon to cure ebola. I'm saying, sludge yourself into the ass receptacle and peck keyboard keys like a hungry chicken until it makes words. ~ Chuck Wendig

That flag's not just the emblem of being a racist asshole, a club to which your daddy probably belongs happily. But it's also the Confederate flag. The one carried by Southerners to say to the Yankees - that's your daddy, a Yankee - 'Don't tread on me or I'll pop a musket ball up your ass.' Northerners driving around with the Dixie flag is like a Jew wearing a 'Go Hitler!' baseball cap." Jonesy's ~ Chuck Wendig

Walls tagged with graffiti (one such piece of tagging: a stencil of a familiar Sith Lord's helmet with the phrase beneath it reading VADER LIVES). ~ Chuck Wendig

People like the illusion of choice. Gives them comfort in these strange times. ~ Chuck Wendig

Do not assume tomorrow will come. Car crash, heart attack, panda mauling; no promises that you'll see the day after today. What you do get is today. You're here right now, so don't waste it. Today is always the day you have. Tomorrow is always a day away. Something-something ~ Chuck Wendig

It starts with my mother ... .Boys get fucked up by their fathers, right? That's why so many tales are really Daddy Issue stories at their core, because men run the world, and men get to tell their stories first. If women told most of the stories, though, then all the best stories would be about Mommy Problems. ~ Chuck Wendig

I don't know what I'm doing here, either. I suspect that the moment I have it figured out, I'll probably die half a second later. ~ Chuck Wendig

Stop abandoning your children. You wouldn't call yourself a runner if you quit every race halfway through. Finishing is a good start. Stop looking for the escape hatch; pretend your work in progress just doesn't have one. 23. ~ Chuck Wendig

You look nervous."
"I'm ... a little nervous."
"You'll be fine. You're pretty. You're alien. You'll trend well. ~ Chuck Wendig

Sir, I don't want this to get ugly." "Have you seen your face, guardsman? Too late to wish for pretty." Temmin ~ Chuck Wendig

Food for the native Ewoks. ~ Chuck Wendig

The audience wants a safety blanket. It's the storyteller's job to take that safety blanket and choke them with it until they experience a profound narrative orgasm. ~ Chuck Wendig

Some of life's best moments are during a good bowel movement, and to have that robbed from you, I can't even imagine. ~ Chuck Wendig

Ramping a jacked-up hell-quad over a dirge-singing pack of goblins with a burned-to-death stuntman at the wheel. I'm ~ Chuck Wendig

Hollis Copper knows that everyone has a story and if you want to speak to someone, you better find a way to speak to his or her story. ~ Chuck Wendig

He's built like a brick shithouse made of a hundred smaller brick shithouses. ~ Chuck Wendig

Conflict is the food that feeds the reader. It's a spicy hell-broth that nourishes. ~ Chuck Wendig

Question marks are shaped like hooks for a reason: they will hook the reader and drag them deeper into the story ~ Chuck Wendig

We think the future is robots and hovercars and maybe it's really here. ~ Chuck Wendig

If ever she is to die, it should be out here, in space. Born from stardust, returned to stardust. ~ Chuck Wendig

Happiness is active, not passive; it's a decision, not an award someone gives you. Happiness takes adjustment. When something is broken, you adjust that thing with a wrench, a screwdriver, maybe a flamethrower. ~ Chuck Wendig

Thanks, Darth Obvious. Or is it Emperor Palpable? ~ Chuck Wendig

Mon Mothma walks among the wreckage, attendants on each side of her: Hostis Ij to her left, and Auxi Kray Korbin on her right. Each serving the role of angel and demon on her shoulder (though the role is never fixed and one becomes the other depending on the situation). Behind them, four New Republic soldiers walking with blaster rifles at the ready. This ~ Chuck Wendig

And the New Republic or the New-New Republic or the Republic We Got This Week will clamp down hard and then those people with the so-called better way will become the brave rebel alliance and the Republic will become the enemy and the wheel will turn once more. ~ Chuck Wendig

No, I just mean ... I'm not into ... this."
"This?" Her scowl deepens and her teeth bare. "Aliens?"
"Women."
"Oh. Oh."
"Yes, oh."
"Oh. ~ Chuck Wendig

What's come before will come back around again. Republic was the way of the world before, and it'll be the way again. And for a time everyone will cheer them on, and everything will be cozy-dosie, but there will come a time when things go sour and someone decides they got a better way of doing things. ~ Chuck Wendig

Hell, nobody's okay. Maybe we never were, and we damn sure aren't now. But we're here. Until we're not. And that's all I find it fair to ask for. ~ Chuck Wendig

( ... ) exposure is not a measurable resource. If someone asks you to write for exposure, ask them how much exposure. Like, have them measure it. "Will it be ten picameters of exposure? I usually ask at least seven nanoliters' worth." If they can prove it, fuck yeah, great. But exposure is a hard thing to prove. Let me utter my refrain yet again: Writers, like hikers, can die from exposure. ~ Chuck Wendig

The boy is young, only twelve standard years, not old enough to fight. Not yet. He looks to his father with pleading eyes. Over the din he yells: "But the battle station was destroyed, Dad! The battle is over!" They just watched it only an hour before. The supposed end of the Empire. The start of something better. The confusion in the boy's shining eyes is clear: He doesn't understand what's happening. But Rorak does. He's heard tales of the Clone Wars - tales spoken by his own father. He knows how war goes. It's not many wars, but just one, drawn out again and again, cut up into slices so it seems more manageable. ~ Chuck Wendig

PREPARE TO FIRE ALL CANNONS," Bones says - his voice warping so that it has a strange, hard-angle accent to it. "COMMENTARY: I SAY WE BLAST THE MEATBAG AND SAVE YOU THE TROUBLE, MASTER. ~ Chuck Wendig

Writers and actors have some creative ground in common, and so when you're writing a scene and hoping to convey a mood it's not the worst idea to try to put that mood into your headspace -- feel it, if only a little. I'm not saying you have to kill a kitten or punch your mother to feel something -- I just mean, stir up the memory of certain emotions if not the emotion itself. Same way an actor might think about a sad moment to conjure tears on-camera. 23. ~ Chuck Wendig

Science is trumped by ignorance when the ignorant are given a vote. ~ Chuck Wendig

The droid stands up. Servomotors whir as it regards its repaired arm - an arm that's not so much an arm as it is an astromech leg. It spins the leg around, slow at first, then faster and faster until it's just a blur. "THIS IS NOT MY ARM." "I know, Bones. Sorry." "THIS IS AN ASTROMECH LEG." "No, no, I know." "ASTROMECHS ARE INFERIOR. THEY ARE BEEPING BOOPING TRASH CANS. I AM MADE INFERIOR BY THE INCLUSION OF THIS NON-ARM. ~ Chuck Wendig

Chewbacca's back home, looking for his family. Luke's searching the galaxy for old Jedi teachings. Han Solo's got nothing to smuggle, nowhere to gamble, no foolish Rebellion to fight for. He's like the Falcon: retired to a hangar somewhere, waiting for something, anything, to happen. ~ Chuck Wendig

Battle droid? The most incompetent droid soldier in the history of both the Republic and the Empire. ~ Chuck Wendig

The shelves had been stripped bare and battered to Hell, as if some super-important Christmas toy release had come and gone and an army of Super-Moms had ripped through the store, buying everything up like an all-consuming void. Didn't hurt that many of the shelves were lined with piles of bones both animal and human. ~ Chuck Wendig

We laugh so that we don't scream. ~ Chuck Wendig

THE HOT WATER'S a scorcher and the cold water's like a winter puddle, and the shower offers nothing in between. ~ Chuck Wendig

The age of the insect, he thinks. The meek truly shall inherit the earth. ~ Chuck Wendig

I'm a certified bad-ass indestructible bitch. The sun tries to burn me, I'll kick him in his fiery balls. I don't need no stinking suntan lotion. ~ Chuck Wendig