“you've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap. there's an animal kind of trick. a human would remain in the trap endure the pain feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind.”

“Knowing where the trap is—that's the first step in evading it.”

“Leto turned a hard stare at Kynes. And Kynes, returning the stare, found himself troubled by a fact he had observed here: This Duke was concerned more over the men than he was over the spice. He risked his own life, and that of his son to save the men. He passed off the loss of a spice crawler with a gesture. The threat to men's lives had him in a rage. A leader such as that would command fanatic loyalty. He would be difficult to defeat.Against his own will and all previous judgements, Kynes admitted to himself: I like this Duke.”

“Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, 'I am not the kind of person I want to be.' It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.”

“I am a leg of the death tripod that will destroy our foes.”

“There's hope left in these dusty chords. There's a song left in our rusty hearts. We are torn and frayed but love remains.”

“To be a god can ultimately become boring and degrading. There'd be reason enough for the invention of free will! A god might wish to escape into sleep and be alive only in the unconscious projections of his dream-creatures.”