I can dream,” Syndulla said, and her smile was sadder than Quell would’ve expected.

Out here, when someone above you gives an order, you follow it. When someone tries to teach you something, you pay attention. When someone shoots at you, you shoot back.

He was not the Empire – not every moment of oppression and indignity and torment she had ever suffered. He was an Imperial, a petty, spiteful, scared little man who’d forgotten his own atrocities.

Jyn had been at the Empire’s mercy before. Sometimes she’d even deserved her troubles – she couldn’t blame some petty dictator for ordering her dragged off the street and slammed into holding when she really, truly was planning to blow up his ship and steal his guns. She’d had rifles pointed at her, felt stun prods deliver jolts to her spine, and generally suffered the worst a stormtrooper was authorized to deal out. What.

What do you know? We don’t all have the luxury of deciding when and where we want to care about something. Suddenly the Rebellion is real for you? Now that you’ve got a stake in it, and – and – now that you don’t have another life to go back to? Some of us live this Rebellion. I’ve been in this fight since I was six years old. You’re not the only one who lost everything. Some of us just decided to do something about it.

The Empire doesn’t care if you surrender. The Empire doesn’t care if you’re hopeless. I’ve given up before, and it doesn’t help. It doesn’t stop.

Justice was the vice of bold, honorable men who died swift, stupid deaths, and vengeance was justice without the sheen of respectability.

What chance do we have’? The question is ‘what choice’.

He hadn’t known her, didn’t know her, of course. There wasn’t the time.

Be careful not to choke on your aspirations, Director,” the voice from the abyss said.