Chapterhouse: Dune (Dune, #6)

by Frank Herbert

The person who takes the banal and ordinary and illuminates it in a new way can terrify. We do not want our ideas changed. We feel threatened by such demands. “I already know the important things!” we say. Then Changer comes and throws our old ideas away.

Producing perfection from imperfection is, after all, the highest of art forms.”

Never compliment the chef in a private establishment. Chefs can be replaced. Hostess is irreplaceable.

Souvenirs of memory must be only that. Things to be taken up and fondled occasionally for evocation of past joys. No joy can be permanent. All is transient. “This, too, shall pass away” applies to all of our living universe.

Arthur and his Round Table. Camelot where it only rains at night. Pretty good Weather Control for those days!

She liked the idea of jazz although the music distracted her with its antique flavors and the dips into wildness. Jazz spoke about life, though. No two performances ever identical. Players reacted to what was received from the others: jazz. Feed us with jazz.

Is it any wonder that I look back on our years together with a happiness transcending anything words can describe? Is it any wonder I do not want or need to forget one moment of it? Most others merely touched her life at the periphery. I shared it in the most intimate ways and everything she did strengthened me. It would not have been possible for me to do what necessity demanded of me during the final ten years of her life, strengthening her in return, had she not given of herself in the preceding years, holding back nothing. I consider that to be my great good fortune and most miraculous privilege.