Chuck Wendig Quotes

“Writers are made
forged, really, in a kiln of their own madness and insecurities
over the course of many, many moons. The writer you are when you begin is not the same as the writer you become.”

— Chuck Wendig

She thinks, I want an orange soda. And I want vodka to mix into the orange soda. And while we're at it, I'd also like to stop being able to see how people are going to bite it. Oh, and a pony. I definitely want a goddamn pony.

— Chuck Wendig

“A lady should be respectful," is all he manages through gritted teeth. He pitches the towel in the corner.
Miriam snorts. "That's me. My fair fuckin' lady.”

— Chuck Wendig

“Storytellers think they're writing for the audience. They're writing, in a way, to hurt the audience.”

— Chuck Wendig

“What ... what are you?" she asked.
"I'm Batman.”

— Chuck Wendig

“He wasn't supposed to feel this way. He didn't even want to feel the way he did for the dog, for Creampuff
Goddamnit
Goddamnit
"Goddamnit!" he snarled. Ginger blinked. Incredulous he explained: "They took my dog, Ginger. They stole my terrier." He popped each of his knuckles. "They didn't just abandon me after I got them through, after I kept them alive. They rubbed salt on my wound while they pissed in my eyes. I can't believe they stole my dog."
Coburn grabbed the kid by his all too-clean shirt and shook him like a baby. "Listen. You're going to drive me to go get Creampuff, my terrier ...”

— Chuck Wendig

“He's built like a brick shithouse made of a hundred smaller brick shithouses.”

— Chuck Wendig

“Dialogue is a little bit jazz, a little bit hand-to-hand combat.”

— Chuck Wendig

“They don't ask, How do we stop bullies? Instead those assholes say, How can we get these stupid kids to stop painting bull's-eyes on their foreheads? They put the blame on the victims, not the victimizers.”

— Chuck Wendig

She gets on her tippy-toes and kisses him. Long, slow, deep. The kind of kiss where you can feel little pieces of your soul trading places as mouths open and breath mingles.

— 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

“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

“We come to the page with too many expectations. Each poor little story is like a trembling donkey upon which we heap tons of weight. We don't just want a good book, we want a bestseller. If it isn't perfect, we hate it. If it isn't 100% right, it's 1000% wrong. Problem: we care too damn much. It's all or nothing with us and that's the kind of dichotomy that shanks our happiness right in the kidneys. So: care less. Ease off the stress stick. Have more fun with what you're doing. When your kids and dogs play in the mud, you can either freak out that they're too dirty, or you can laugh and jump in the mud, too. So, fuck it: jump in the damn mud already.”

— Chuck Wendig

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

— Chuck Wendig

Food for the native Ewoks.

— Chuck Wendig

“If there's one mystical energy that powers the galaxy, it's not the Force. It's pure, unadulterated irony.”

— Chuck Wendig

“War is not a state of being. It is meant to be a temporary chaos between periods of peace. Some want it to be a course of things: a default fact of existence. But I will not let that be so.”

— Chuck Wendig

“Personal opinion time: some of the bravest, strangest, coolest stories right now are being told in the young adult space. It's stuff that doesn't fly by tropes or adhere to rules
appropriate, perhaps, since young adults tend to flick cigarettes in the eyes of the rules and don't play by social norms as much as adults do.”

— Chuck Wendig

“On the worst day of writing, the work is instructive. On the best day, the act is transcendent.”

— Chuck Wendig

Ackbar interjects: But we also must recognize the Empire's ability to play the long game. Our victory over Endor was fortunate, but the Empire orchestrated that trap with great patience.

— Chuck Wendig

“It's a fucking Fiero, dude. It's twenty years old. It has 150,000 miles on it, which is practically what it takes to get to the moon. I'm going to bet if I open this thing up, it's going to smell like stale Drakkar Noir and chemical pine scent. There is probably a dead rat in the trunk. Maybe a whole nest of dead rats and rat babies." She finishes her drawing. (Spoiler alert: it's a penis.) "You should really be paying me to take this burden of Detroit steel off your hands.”

— Chuck Wendig

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.

— Chuck Wendig

“Not every writer needs a plan, but in my experience many believe they don't need a plan when, frankly, they do. I was that kind of writer: I thought, ha ha ha, stupid people saying I should outline or do preparatory work, those silly assholes with their misunderstanding of my genius. If you find you're lost in the woods of your own fiction and feel like giving up
it might be because you have no plan. You can retrofit one. Doing that will help put you back on track and give your current writing a jolt of needed organization.”

— Chuck Wendig

“Good story thrives on protagonists in pain.”

— 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

“Between them an image is projected: a single, winking cursor. It wants a code. It wants the code.”

— Chuck Wendig

I'm old enough to remember when the Republic shot itself right in the knee. It wasn't taken over by the Empire. It became the Empire slowly, surely, not overnight but over years and decades. Fruit always tastes nice when it's ripe. But it can't stay like that. Every nice piece of fruit will rot on the branch if it hangs there long enough. You remember that.

— Chuck Wendig

“The Empire is in chaos. As the old order crumbles, the fledgling New Republic seeks a swift end to the galactic conflict. Many Imperial leaders have fled from their posts, hoping to escape justice in the farthest corners of known space.”

— 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

“And no hope is greater than that of the Wookiees of Kashyyyk. Heroes of the Rebellion Han Solo and Chewbacca have gathered a team of smugglers and scoundrels to free Kashyyyk from its Imperial slavers once and for all.”

— 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

You can't be friends with a droid.

— Chuck Wendig

“May the Force be with you, mister."
"You too, kid. You too.”

— Chuck Wendig

“Battle droid? The most incompetent droid soldier in the history of both the Republic and the Empire.”

— Chuck Wendig

“No Tie Fighters. No blasts across the bow of his X-Wing. No X-Wing, in fact, and though he loves flying one, it's nice to be out. No Death Star
and here, Wedge shudders, because he helped take down two of those things. Some days that fills him with pride. Other days it's something else, something worse. Like he's drawn back to it. The fight still going on around him. But that isn't today.
Today it's quiet.
Wedge like's the quiet.”

— 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

“Maybe that's the problem with generations. You start to forget what it was like when you were like them, so they become your enemy and you become theirs and nobody understands each other. Then you die and they become you and finally, finally they understand, but by then it's too late.”

— 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

“The Empire is just a skin we wear, you see. A shell. It's not just about law and order. It's about total control.”

— Chuck Wendig

“The pilot, Wedge Antilles, once Red Leader and now-well, now something else, a role without a formal title, as yet,”

— Chuck Wendig

“No Sith remain," Tashu says. "And the lone Jedi that exists-the son of Anakin Skywalker-possesses an untouchable soul.”

— 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

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

“( ... ) 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

“Conflict is the food that feeds the reader. It's a spicy hell-broth that nourishes.”

— 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

He - and Cal - prefer a more generalized outlook on the End Times, recognizing it could come from anything: superstorms, polar shifts, invasion by the Chinese, attack by the U.S. government on its own people, aliens, EMP, God's wrath on a sin-filled world, killer bees. (Chance notes that no one mentions "Rogue AI with a penchant for Greek mythology." He figures someone should update their menu, because it is riding to number one on the charts with a bullet.)

— Chuck Wendig

“We must remember that our fight continues. Our rebellion is over. But the war ... the war is just beginning. -ADMIRAL ACKBAR”

— 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

“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