One may learn a great deal of a people by the stories they tell of others.

The maitrakh met her gaze steadily, her alien face unreadable.'Are you offering me your help?' Leia asked.'There is honor in you, Lady Vader,' the maitrakh said, her voice quiet. 'For the life and honor of my thirdson, I will go with you. Perhaps we will die together.'Leia nodded, her heart aching. 'Perhaps we will.

Still, even when false, legends can be most informative.

You happened to me," she told him, her voice more fatigued than embittered. "You came out of a grubby sixth-rate farm on a tenth-rate planet, and destroyed my life." - Mara Jade

She was here, and it was now; and as the emperor's instructors had so often drummed into her, the first item of business was to fit into her surroundings. And that meant not looking like an escapee from the medical ward

I know something about a lot of things," she countered evenly. "That's why you're grooming me to be your lieutenant, remember?" - Mara Jade

But she wasn't a serving girl in a Phorliss cantina this time, or a come-up flector for a swoop gang on Caprioril, or even a hyperdrive mechanic stuck in the backwater of the Ison Corridor. She was second in command to the most powerful smuggler in the galaxy, with the kind of resources and mobility she hadn't had since the death of the Emperor. [p] The kind of resources that would let her find Luke Skywalker again. And kill him

One of the first rules the Emperor had drummed into her [Mara Jade] so long ago was to blend in as best she could with her surroundings

I've found that what most people call luck is often little more than raw talent combined with the ability to make the most of opportunities. (Talon Karrde)