YODA QUOTES II

quotations about the Star Wars character Yoda

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Yoda is this little ugly thing, but he's the Jedi Master. He 's the guy who taught everybody. Everybody went to Yoda for knowledge. When you sit around talking to any older person who has lived their life to the fullest, they have great stories to tell because they have had great experiences.

GEORGE KOEHLER

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Yoda is the archetype of the older tutelary figure who guides the boy in the spiritual disciplines necessary to become a knight or a warrior. What would Theseus be without Poseidon, Plato without Socrates, Arthur without Merlin, or the Zen initiate without his master? Such wise elders may seem scarce in these contemporary times, when we hide most of them away in institutions and few have prominent roles in the stories we tell. But there was a time in American history when they were at the center of collective life. Although Yoda is physically unlike any figure of consequence in American mythology, in temperament he resembles the Native American shaman--the holy man or medicine man (or sometimes woman)--especially in his role as guide for the initiation rituals of war or the hunt. Like the shaman, Yoda is the human (well, humanoid) representative of spiritual energy, of the divine forces of the cosmos that cause all things within it to be interrelated.

JANICE HOCKER RUSHING

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Given the pervasive history of the trope, it should come as no surprise that Master Yoda is forced to engage his dark counterpart physically and, over the course of the battle, comes to recognize the figure as his own dark side. Despite being one of the wisest, most admired Jedi in the history of the Order, an accomplished Master who thought he had his dark side well in hand, Yoda discovers the insidious nature of immersing oneself in violence. With this newfound knowledge in hand, Yoda comes to understand that winning the Clone Wars is unachievable, that his belief in war as a means to an end is misguided; the only way to bring balance back to the galaxy is through sacrificing everything, even the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order.

DEREK R. SWEET

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Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Yoda.
Yoda who?
Yoda le lee whoo.

ANONYMOUS

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We tried to do Yoda in CGI in Episode I, but we just couldn't get it done in time. We couldn't get the technology to work, so we had to use the puppet, but the puppet really wasn't as good as the CGI. So when we did the reissue, we had to put the CGI back in, which was what it was meant to be.

GEORGE LUCAS

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Yoda shows us that letting go doesn't need to be a dramatic, painful, or emotional experience. Letting go of concepts doesn't need to be life and death. Yoda has seen entire star systems plummet from peace into chaos. He has witnessed the Sith ascend to galaxy-wide domination and the Jedi crumble into ruin. He knows he has reached the end of his life and that his mortal enemies would mock his final words. Yet he is not attached to a vision of the way things should be. He does not despair his lost Republic, his dead Jedi, or his own failures. He knows twilight is upon him and night will soon fall. Yoda is able to let go because he sees through the concepts of life and death. He sees the truth of "the way of things." Seeing and abiding in that truth is the ultimate state of freedom--nirvana.

MATTHEW BORTOLIN

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The character Yoda is probably the clearest embodiment of the Jedis. Widely known for his odd syntax, Yoda is preternaturally wise. Thus, his odd phrasing is meant to signify not only eccentricity but also wisdom--a wisdom that must break free from the bounds of common English grammatical rules, apparently.

SAM HAN & KAMALUDEEN MOHAMED NASIR

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"Do or do not. There is no try," says Yoda, the bewitching philosopher warrior created by George Lucas in Star Wars. Yoda is quoted at least as often as the founding fathers on this topic.

JERRY I. PORRAS

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Yoda is interesting because, in addition to being wise, he is two feet tall, and a Yoda.

DANIEL HARMON

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For years, people have written me defending of the core goodness of Yoda and--yes!--old Darth. Now, the Defense concedes that Yoda is a nasty, secretive, lying and loathsomely destructive little demon? This from an author, who repeatedly (if cryptically) claims inside knowledge--ex cathedra--from the ultimate source? It's a shock. Like when J. R. R. Tolkien called his elves selfish reactionaries!

DAVID BRIN

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In addition to his role as triple structural equivalent, Yoda is, in Levi-Strauss's terms, a mediating figure par excellence, since he links Luke, Ben, and Darth Vader, having taught all three. He also links the positive and negative sides of the Force, which his students have used for good and for evil.

CONRAD PHILLIP KOTTAK

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Yoda is not the keeper or distributor of the Force. Yoda just understands and is able to communicate how to wield its power.

WYNNE MARIE LACEY

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I think Yoda is my favorite character -- Yoda from Empire from Strikes Back. Discovering Yoda and the way he talked about the Force and what it meant to him was such a fun ... and also soulful experience. To be able to experience Yoda and feel something. You watch this puppet show Luke Skywalker actually how connected the universe is ... Yoda will always stick in my mind because of that.

JOHN SWARTZ

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Immersed in the swamps of Dagobah and surrounded by all sorts of primordial life, Yoda is a child of nature. Mythologically, because of his close relationship to water, vegetative life, and animals, he is closely linked to the symbolism of the Great Mother the elemental, archetypal feminine principle. Yet Yoda clearly reflects the masculine principle of spirit.

STEVEN GALIPEAU

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Yes, Yoda is secretive, and often unhelpful. TheJedi themselves -- SURPRISE! -- aren't exactly good guys. Perhaps Opposing Counsel never noticed. Let me enlighten him, and the Court. If you take a close look at the Jedi Order, you find that--in Mr. Lucas's own words--they're a cross between the Texas Rangers and the Mafia. They are a vast organization of superheroes--real superheroes, with superpowers right out of Marvel or DC Comics--who wield near-absolute power in secret, without accountability to anyone but themselves and the Office of the Supreme Chancellor. They are the Justice League with interplanetary Licenses to Kill.

MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER

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Yoda is free from the emotions that subvert reason. Yoda is not reckless or impatient, as Luke is at first. Nor is Yoda frivolous. Like a Stoic, Yoda never becomes perturbed or excited. Most significantly, Yoda does not succumb to anger.

KEVIN S. DECKER & JASON T. EBERL

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A prototype for Yoda is found in the mystical character Dersu in Kurosawa's 1975 film Dersu Uzala, which also features an explorer who finds himself stranded in an arctic blizzard and is rescued by a companion who stuffs the freezing man's unconscious body in a pile of grass to survive the long cold night.

MICHAEL KAMINSKI

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The humble obscurity of Yoda speaks volumes about the nature of the Force that Luke must come to understand.

ROY M. ANKER

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By the way, George didn't want my voice in the beginning. I gave him a tape. He said, "No thank you." And in post production, for about a year, I heard that he was auditioning voices for Yoda. He had no intention to use me for voice. And then I was on my honeymoon with my first wife about twenty five years ago or thirty years ago, and he said, "Uh, Frank, maybe, could you come out? (We're in Hawaii.) I think we'd like to try your voice." And so I flew back and recorded Yoda.

FRANK OZ

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Yoda is one of the more delightful aliens to spring from Lucas' fecund imagination. A monkeyish creature with rabbit ears sticking out sideways from his wrinkled dome, he looks like a simian John Houseman.

AMERICAN LABOR CONFERENCE ON INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

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