Brian Herbert

“My grandfather was a police officer. He taught Dad about lie detectors and police interrogation methods, so Dad got this old World War II lie detector and used it on us regularly. He was obsessed with the truth.”

“It's so much more interesting to study a ... damaged world. I find it difficult to learn anything in a place that's too civilized.”

“We moved 23 times before I was out of high school!”

“No one has yet determined the power of the human species . . . what it may perform by instinct, and what it may accomplish with rational determination.”

“I didn't actually get along with my dad when I was growing up, so by the time I was in my 20s, I didn't think I was going to be a writer.”

“In 'Sidney's Comet,' thanks to all the consumerism, all the garbage had to be put in deep space, even though we're not supposed to litter the cosmos - that was an environmental message. Although it was funny, it had an important message.”

“Discovery is dangerous . . . but so is life. A man unwilling to take risk is doomed never to learn, never to grow, never to live.”

“We create our own future by our own beliefs, which control our actions. A strong enough belief system, a sufficiently powerful conviction, can make anything happen. This is how we create our consensus reality, including our gods.”

“The universe is our picture. Only the immature imagine the cosmos to be what they think it is.”

“My wife noticed that I wrote really good complaint letters about faulty products and that I could get anything I wanted out of these big corporations, and she said that I was a good writer and that I should go to my dad and ask him for help.”

“There's so much overlapping in science fiction.”

“My dad was an adventurer, my mother a romantic. When they met in college, both were creative writers; the writing was a bond.”

“If you surrender, you have already lost. If you refuse to give up, though, no matter the odds against you, at least you have succeeded in trying.”

“Written words, if carefully laid down, represent the civilized ideal of reason.”

“I'll keep writing 'Dune' books as long as my mother's spirit continues to support the project.”