Enormous problems arise when human mistakes are made on the grand scale available to a superhero... Heroes are painful, superheroes are a catastrophe. The mistakes of superheroes involve too many of us in disaster.

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.

It is so shocking to find out how many people do not believe that they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult.

What is important for a leader is that which makes him a leader. It is the needs of his people.

The gift of words is the gift of deception and illusion.

You should never be in the company of anyone with whom you would not want to die.

You don't write for success. That takes part of your attention away from the writing. If you're really doing it, that's all you're doing: writing.