Quotes About Frank Herbert

Chance is the nature of our universe. [...] madness represents a chaotic reservoir of surprises. Some surprises can be valuable.

Irreverence is a most necessary ingredient of religion. Not to speak of its importance in philosophy. Irreverence is the only way left to us for testing our universe.

We are generalists. You can't draw neat lines around planet-wide problems. Planetology is a cut-and-fit science.

I don't speak, I operate a machine called language. It creaks and groans, but is mine own.

Every judgment teeters on the brink of error," Leto explained. "To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty.

When he wanted, he could radiate charm and sincerity, but I often wonder in these later days if anything about him was as it seemed. I think now he was a man fighting constantly to escape the bars of an invisible cage.

It has occurred to me more than once that holy boredom is good and sufficient reason for the invention of free will.

The singular multiplicity of this universe draws my deepest attention. It is a thing of ultimate beauty. Leto II

Irreverence is a most necessary ingredient of religion. Not to speak of its importance in philosophy. Irreverence is the only way left to us for testing our universe.

There's no mystery about a human life. It's not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

the sleeper must awaken

All of history is a malleable instrument in my hands. Ohhh, I have accumulated all of these pasts and I possess every fact—yet the facts are mine to use as I will and, even using them truthfully, I change them.

Mood?" Halleck's voice betrayed his outrage even through the shield's filtering. "What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting.

Sometimes I wonder about Piter, the Baron said. I cause pain out of necessity, but he...I swear he takes a positive delight in it. -Baron Vladimir

I have been a stranger in a strange land, Halleck quoted. Paul stared at him, recognizing the quotation from the O.C. Bible, wondering: Does Gurney, too, wish an end to devious plots?

I guess I'm not in the mood for it today," Paul said. "Mood?" Halleck's voice betrayed his outrage even through the shield's filtering. "What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting.

Another might have missed the tension, but she had trained him in the Bene Gesserit Way - in the minutiae of observation.

He uses the nice old words so rich in tradition to be sure I know he means it.

How sure it is, Leto thought, that a weapon can lock a person into a predictable pattern of behavior.

I knew Frank Herbert for more than thirty-eight years. He was a magnificent human being, a man of great honor and distinction, and the most interesting person at any gathering, drawing listeners around him like a magnet. To say he was an intellectual giant would be an understatement, since he seemed to contain all of the knowledge of the universe in his marvelous mind. He was my father, and I loved him deeply.

This is the perspective which you create with your own belief, and beliefs can be manipulated by imagination. You've learned only a limited way of looking at the universe. Now you must make the universe your own creation.

I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea…and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

I see the signs!" Jessica snapped. "My question was meant to remind you that you should not try to teach me those matters in which I instructed you." Paul

It was a scene of such beauty it caught all his attention. Some things beggar likeness, he thought. He