When I was writing Dune there was no room in my mind for concerns about the book's success or failure. I was concerned only with the writing. Six years of research had preceded the day I sat down to put the story together, and the interweaving of the many plot layers I had planned required a degree of concentration I had never before experienced.

There is no escape - we pay for the violence of our ancestors.

It must certainly be more dangerous to live in ignorance than to live with knowledge.

When you imagine mistakes, there can be no self-defense.

The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy.

The ferocity we show our foes must be tempered by the lesson we hope to teach.

Democracy is susceptible to being led astray by having scapegoats paraded in front of the electorate.