Chemist’s Reviews > Dune > Status Update

"My mother's sick with longing for a planet she may never see, where water falls from the sky and plants grow so thickly you cannot walk between them."
"Water from the sky," Stilgar whispered.
In that instant, Paul saw how Stilgar had been transformed from the Fremen naib to a creature of the Lisan-al-Gaib, a receptacle for awe and obedience.
I have seen a friend become a worshipper, he thought.

How often is it that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.

When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual.

When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late.

Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.

Paul felt that a vital moment had passed him, that he had missed an essential decision and was now caught up in his own myth. It was as though he rode within the wave of time, sometimes in its trough, sometimes on a crest-and all around him the other waves lifted and fell, revealing and then hiding what they bore on their surface.
Through it all, the wild jihad still loomed. It was like a promontory above the surf.

Paul, hearing these words, realized that he had plunged once more into the abyss... blind time. There was no past occupying the future in his mind... except... except.... he could still sense the green and black Atreides banner waving... somewhere ahead... still see the jihad’s bloody swords and fanatic legions.

It will not be, he told himself. I cannot let it be.

And I will make the rivers dry, and sell the land into the hand of the wicked: and I will make the land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers.

“My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing,' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be.”

Leto stared across the table, wondering why he waited. The tooth could end it all quickly. Still - it had been good, much of this life. He found himself remembering an anetanna kite updangling in the shell blue sky of Caladan, and Paul laughing with joy at the sight of it. And he remembered sunrise here on Arrakis - coloured strata of the Shield Wall mellowed by dust haze.