Love is not a mood, but a dynamic way of being.

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.

The stakes in conflict do not change. Battle determines who will control the wealth or its equivalent.

Balance is what distinguishs a people from a mob.

Police are inevitably corrupted. ... Police always observe that criminals prosper. It takes a pretty dull policeman to miss the fact that the position of authority is the most prosperous criminal position available.

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

We accept too damned many things on the explanations of people who could have good reasons for lying.